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Six days after a trooper ticketed him for speeding in February and refused to cut him a break, Assemblyman Nelson Albano wrote a scathing letter to the head of the State Police.
The lawmaker claimed the trooper, Randy Pangborn, targeted him on his way to the Statehouse, refused to accept his temporary vehicle registration, requested backup, and had other troopers box in his car. He said he was "humiliated, embarrassed and disrespected as a legislator."
"There was absolutely no reason to treat me like a criminal and detain two other troopers from public safety while trooper Pangborn conducted his charade," Albano wrote from his Assembly office to State Police Superintendent Col. Rick Fuentes, requesting an internal investigation.
But a video of the traffic stop, captured by a camera inside the trooper's patrol car and recently obtained by The Star-Ledger, tells a different story from the one Albano described.
The trooper was respectful, calm, never raised his voice and had the lawmaker on his way in just eight minutes. Pangborn never rejected the temporary registration, and even apologized for writing the ticket. When Albano asked for a break, he politely told him to call the court.
A spokesman for the State Police, Lt. Stephen Jones, said dispatch records indicated Pangborn did not request backup. Two other patrol cars were at the scene, the video shows, but they stayed only briefly.
The lawmaker's complaint was first disclosed by The Star-Ledger in April. The newspaper then requested the video under the Open Public Records Act, but the State Police refused to release it. It was made public in October, after the newspaper threatened to sue.
The video, combined with statements Albano made when The Star-Ledger first inquired about the stop, show many of the allegations he made against the trooper were either false or unfounded.
Albano, a Democrat from Cumberland County, did not return several requests for comment. A spokesman for Assembly Democrats, Tom Hester Jr., said the lawmaker withdrew his complaint April 13 — nearly two months after sending it, and one day after The Star-Ledger questioned him about it.
"This all happened the same month that the man who killed Assemblyman Albano’s son was released from jail and the Assemblyman had a heart attack," Hester said in a statement. "Assemblyman Albano apologized and paid the fine and will have no further comment on this issue."
A day after a Star-Ledger report on his complaint, on April 16, Albano apologized for giving the impression he expected special treatment. But until Friday, he had not disclosed that he had withdrawn the complaint, and told the newspaper in April he had asked the State Police to investigate who leaked it.
In response to Albano’s allegations, Pangborn filed a counter complaint earlier this year claiming the lawmaker, a member of the Assembly Law and Public Safety Committee, put his career in limbo by initiating a baseless internal investigation because he refused to throw out the ticket.
The trooper also alleged that after the stop, the largest State Police union pressured him to make the ticket disappear as a favor to a "personal friend." The union has denied involvement.
The State Police said Friday they had concluded their internal investigation into Albano’s claims that the speeding ticket was undeserved and determined them to be unfounded.
THE TRAFFIC STOP
At 1:13 p.m. Feb. 21, Albano was pulled over for going 71 mph in a 55 mph zone on Route 29 just before the tunnel heading north into Trenton. The video shows his silver SUV rolling to a stop in the left-hand shoulder and the trooper approaching the car about a minute later.
A few short portions of audio at the beginning of the stop were redacted by the State Police because the trooper relayed personal information such as Albano’s license plate.
"Good afternoon," Pangborn said. "License, registration and insurance card, please."
The trooper asked for the paper registration, but Albano said he did not receive it yet.
"No paperwork with it, sir?" Pangborn asks.
"Just the thing that’s on the back window," Albano replied.
"OK," Pangborn said. "I got you at 71, it’s a 55."
"I actually thought it was 65, I apologize," Albano said.
"OK, stay in the vehicle please," Pangborn said.
At some point, another patrol car pulled behind Pangborn, the video shows, and a third pulled in front of Albano. Jones, the State Police spokesman, said no back up was called but troopers routinely stop if they see another on the side of the road to make sure everything is okay.
After the other patrol cars had been there about 90 seconds, Pangborn radioed the troopers and told them he was fine and they left, the video shows. A few minutes after that, he returned to Albano’s vehicle.
"All right, sir, a little fast, sorry about that," Pangborn said. "Ah, 71 in a 55, you need to contact court, number’s on the back, they’ll explain how to take care of that, all right?"
Albano then tried to talk his way out of the ticket. On the video, he can be heard telling Pangborn he was elected legislator of the year by the New Jersey State Policemen’s Benevolent Association, which honored the lawmaker last year.
Although everything the trooper said was captured by a microphone on his uniform, most of what Albano said is inaudible. But he told The Star-Ledger in April, "I remember saying, yes, ‘Can you cut me a break? I’ve always supported the State Police, I was elected as legislator of the year because of what I have done supporting the police, can’t you cut me a break?’"
The video shows Pangborn politely declined the lawmaker’s request.
"Well, you know, you have to contact court and then we can just go through there, OK sir?" Pangborn said before returning to his patrol car. Albano pulled away moments later.
DIFFERENT STORY
Six days after the traffic stop, on Feb. 27, Albano sent a letter on official letterhead from his Assembly office requesting an internal investigation of the traffic stop and Pangborn’s conduct. But the stop he described was different from what the video showed.
Albano said he told the trooper about his temporary registration on the back window but Pangborn "insisted I needed a registration card."
"At that time, two other troopers blocked me in, one in front and another in back," Albano wrote to the State Police superintendent, Fuentes. "I spoke to the trooper with utmost respect and professional courtesy. Not receiving the same from the trooper."
He went on: "I was humiliated, embarrassed and disrespected as a Legislator as some of my colleagues drove past. Why would a trooper call for backup on a Legislator?"
Albano said he felt he was "singled out intentionally by the trooper, neglected to give professional courtesy and detained from state business at the Statehouse. I am requesting an internal investigation into this incident and the troopers (sic) conduct."
"I believe this trooper was, and is, retaliating against any legislator because of the changes in health care and pension reform," he said.
But when asked by The Star-Ledger about the stop in April, Albano admitted he had no evidence to back up his claim. He was not late to the governor’s budget address that day, opposed the health and pension changes, and said the retaliation claim was only a guess.
He also said he was told Pangborn stopped another lawmaker that day, but issued only a warning. He declined to identify that lawmaker, but said that since legislators have special license plates, he felt he was being singled out.
He told the newspaper the trooper was disrespectful "by the tone of his voice."
In his counter complaint, Pangborn said he feared the internal investigation prompted by Albano would drag on for years, was intended as punishment and could thwart a promotion.
"I believe that my reluctance to ‘take care’ of Albano’s ticket is the basis for the internal (complaint) against me," Pangborn wrote in his complaint.
Pangborn did not return a message seeking comment on the video of the traffic stop.
Related coverage:
• Controversy surrounding South Jersey legislator's traffic stop leads to internal police investigation
• N.J. assemblyman apologizes for requesting special treatment for speeding ticket
• Editorial: Ethics committee should investigate lawmaker's pressuring of trooper after ticket | {
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A group of friends reunite after a long time to plan a vacation. They finally decide to go on a hiking trip in Sweden. When one of them is injured, they have no choice but to cut through the forest in order to arrive at the lodge a couple of hours sooner. During a raging rainstorm, they spent the night in a spooky, abandoned house. What awaits them are things they never expect out of this supposedly bonding trip. Written by heyitsnuel | {
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'Say a prayer': Carnival cruise ship floods as water flows into 50 guest rooms
A broken water line left a Carnival cruise ship flooded throughout hallways and 50 staterooms last Thursday as crew members rushed to restore rooms and resettle passengers within a matter of hours.
Video footage from aboard the Carnival Dream's Caribbean voyage last week shows water rushing from the ship's walls, ceiling and rooms after a malfunction with the vessel's fire sprinkler system occurred at around 6 p.m., the company later said in a statement.
A Facebook post documenting the flooding from passenger Marla DeAnn Haase received more than 10,000 shares before its removal, according to the Miami Herald, with DeAnn Haase asking friends to "say a prayer for (us) all."
Carnival provided full details of the incident in a statement to New Orleans station Fox 8, explaining that the weeklong cruise's incident affected about 100 guests as crew members rushed to restore their rooms by around midnight. Carpeting in rooms and elsewhere was replaced as needed, while other rooms — while still damp — were deemed suitable for sleeping, the company said.
A few guests opted to move their mattresses to the spa for the night, per the statement.
"We offered to fly the impacted guests home at our expense if they wanted to disembark early and only two of the nearly 100 guests that received our offer chose to do so," Carnival said in the statment, per Fox 8. "Most of the guests on board were not even aware of the incident until the last 24 hours as word circulated and our passengers heard from friends and family who saw media reports."
By the next day, Carnival had offered all affected passengers on the 3,500-person voyage a full refund plus a 50% discount for a future cruise, according to Inc. The ship returned Sunday morning to its homeport in New Orleans as scheduled.
More: Shut the front door! Guy Fieri now has a barbecue eatery/brewhouse on a cruise ship
More: Carnival Cruise Line trades cruise for teen's Snapchat handle | {
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Arne Weise rasar mot SVT:s julvärdsbeslut
Av: Anna Shimoda , Hans Shimoda
Publicerad: 11 december 2017 kl. 09.56
Uppdaterad: 22 december 2017 kl. 13.14
Julvärdsikonen: ”Det är åt helvete”
1 av 2 | Foto: JERKER IVARSSON Erik Haag och Lotta Lundgren.
Två julvärdar istället för en.
Dessutom väljer SVT att slopa direktsändningen – något som får Arne Weise att rasa.
– Det är åt helvete, säger han till Nöjesbladet.
I veckan stod det klart att Erik Haag, 50, och Lotta Lundgren, 46, blir årets julvärdar i SVT. Det är första gången någonsin som kanalen väljer att ha två personer. I samma veva avslöjades det dessutom att de väljer att slopa den klassiska direktsändningen för att istället spela in alltsammans i förväg.
– Det här är ett upplägg som kräver helt andra lokaler och en helt annan tid, än när man sitter på det sättet. Det här är inte att vi byter modell generellt sett för julvärdskapet, utan det här är sättet vi väljer att göra det i år, förklarade programdirektör Lena Glaser för TT.
Det kontroversiella upplägget får SVT:s legendariske julvärd, Arne Weise, 87, att rasa.
– Fy fan! Det är så jävla viktigt att man sitter där, så som jag gjorde i trettio års tid. Man kan inte sitta hemma och njuta av sig själv. Jag blir upprörd när jag hör det här, säger Arne till Nöjesbladet.
Kommer slopa SVT på julafton
På Arnes tid var det aldrig tal om något annat än just direktsändning.
– Det var ju det som var grejen, att man satt där. Det var ju en förutsättning. Som pricken över i!
Arne har som tradition att ringa upp årets julvärd en halvtimme innan sändningen börjar klockan tre och önska lycka till. Men nu överväger han att bryta den traditionen.
– Jag vete fan om jag har lust med det nu.
Även det faktum att det är två julvärdar istället för en får Arne att gå i taket.
– Det är helt otänkbart! Det ska vara en person som är varm och go och tycker om att synas.
Arne har i skrivande stund inte bestämt hur han ska fira jul. Oavsett vilket är det ytterst tveksamt om han slår på SVT.
– Det tror jag inte. Inte efter det ni har berättat nu. Det är åt helvete!
KOPIERA LÄNK
Publicerad: 11 december 2017 kl. 09.56 | {
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Growing up in North Carolina, I didn’t know anyone in a union. And it wasn’t until a few years ago, as I became involved in my own union as a journalist, that I learned my home state bans public-sector employees from collective bargaining. What started in part as an effort, in 1958, to break up cop and firefighter unions in Charlotte soon ossified into a state law covering all public employees. In 1981, the state also prohibited those same workers from going on strike. What that has meant in the decades since is that, even as the law has been challenged, workers must rely on the state’s increasingly conservative legislature when it comes to basic working conditions and salary standards. It’s a situation that some of these employees have called begging.
But over the past three years, teachers in North Carolina have bucked harder against the state Republican Party, which has been insistent on dragging what was once the progressive beacon of the South backward for going on a decade. Most recently, the issue of public-sector unionism was revisited last week, when the North Carolina Association of Educators conducted a survey of its membership in an effort to assess whether North Carolina teachers would be interested in going on strike regardless of the law. As The Coastland Times reported last week, “The NCAE is surveying teachers to find out how long they would participate in a work stoppage if the legislature doesn’t meet its demands, which include 5% pay raises, $15 minimum wages, Medicaid expansion and reinstating previous retiree health benefits.” (The co-chair of the NCAE caucus in charge of the survey told the Asheville Citizen Times that the average response was five days.)
It’s just a survey, but it’s more than that, too. This planning process arrives as part of a larger movement of American public teachers attempting to wrest back some sense of control of their jobs—over everything from salaries and class sizes to access to nurses and social workers for their students—at the bargaining table. From Los Angeles to Arizona to Denver, teachers in Right to Work states and more liberal states have been seizing the strength and leverage they have and trying to turn that into livable salaries and a career path that doesn’t leave you crowdfunding for school supplies or taking a second job.
A possible strike in North Carolina would be significant: The state currently has the second-lowest union membership rate in the nation, behind only South Carolina. In North Carolina and across the entire Bible Belt, uttering words like “union” or “strike” is often akin to taking the Lord’s name in vain, and Democrats and Republicans alike have worked to undercut organized labor. In one of the more egregious examples of this kind of bipartisan anti-unionism, Democratic Governor Roy Cooper signed a bill in 2017 that sought to cut the legs out from underneath a private union for seasonal farmworkers, who are among the most vulnerable workforce in a state that still derives a great deal of its economy from industrialized agriculture. The legislation outlawed the practice of employers removing union dues from farmworkers’ paychecks and prevented workers from requesting a unionization effort as the result of a legal dispute. It’s the standard playbook, a death by a thousand cuts model of weakening union efforts where the law is already stacked against workers.
There’s a long history behind this well-financed anti-labor sentiment and how it came to be so entrenched both in North Carolina’s laws and in its culture. The short version is this: The state’s economy was once largely constituted only of rural farming communities and factory towns, and the tobacco and textile executives worked hand in hand with the state to ensure unions could not sink their roots in the state. So even as North Carolina’s workforce has diversified, its government’s stance on labor hasn’t changed. Combine that with national efforts to demonize unions and paint them as the real enemy of workers, and you’ve got yourself a recipe for unchecked austerity for public workers and impunity among private employers. (Unsurprisingly, Republican lawmakers in North Carolina have been steadfast in their opposition to Medicaid expansion, despite majority support in the state and the fact that one million North Carolinians—or 10 percent of the population—lack health insurance because of our nation’s cruel and byzantine system.) | {
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New Zealand Mint
Four words you’d never expect to hear: “Use the coin, Luke.”
And you thought you were Star Wars die-hard. Apparently not as die-hard as the Pacific nation of Niue, a roughly 100-square-mile island located 1,500 miles northeast of New Zealand, sometimes called the “Rock of Polynesia,” or just “The Rock” for short. These folks just opted to print coins adorned with color images of Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, Darth Vader and other Star Wars fan favorites. We’re not kidding: actual, usable, carry-in-your-coin-purse change.
The catch: the coins will be worth too much to justify spending. That, and you’ll have to be one of Niue’s 2,000 residents to actually use them, probably making this the world’s most exclusive sci-fi-themed currency.
(LIST: Top 10 Long-Running Movie Franchises)
But still, honest-to-goodness, financially legitimate Star Wars coins? Who’d-‘a-thunk.
Niue—whose name means “behold the coconut”—uses New Zealand’s currency, the “Kiwi dollar,” and the Star Wars coins are valued at NZ$2 each (or directly converted, about US$1.66). But their actual value, according to AAP New Zealand (via The Sydney Morning Herald), is upwards of AUD$100 (Australian dollars). The coins are apparently made of silver that’s worth AUD$40 alone—the set includes eight one-ounce solid silver coins and 10 silver-plated base metal ones, and retails for about AUD$450, or about US$465 if you’re looking to collect a set to ship stateside.
“You wouldn’t want to go and spend them because they’re only worth $2 [officially] but the value is much more than that,” said New Zealand Mint Vice President of USA Operations Chris Kirkness (speaking to Fairfax New Zealand), quipping “No one is going to go buy an ice cream with them.”
If you want a set, you’ll have to be quick: They’re only printing 50,000 of each coin, with some offered in special collectors’ boxes (limited to 7,500). There’s one modeled after Darth Vader (opening it triggers Vader’s trademark mask-breathing sound) and another after the Millennium Falcon (opening it triggers a launch-engine sound).
Will the force be with your checkbook? You’ll have to find out November 1st, when they’re due to go on sale.
MORE: Happy Star Wars Day! Celebrate with Yoga
Matt Peckham is a reporter at TIME. Find him on Twitter at @mattpeckham or on Facebook. You can also continue the discussion on TIME’s Facebook page and on Twitter at @TIME. | {
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“The world’s largest shopping mall is almost entirely empty,” says a headline now making its way around the Internet. The mall is not one of America’s consumer emporia. It is not in the US at all. Instead, it is in the Middle Kingdom…and twice as large as the “Mall of the Americas.”
The world did not end in 2009. Two things are widely reported to have saved it – stimulus in the West and China in the East.
Harvard economist Robert Barro, writing in The Wall Street Journal, considered the effect of stimulus spending on the US economy. The US government’s 2009 program was originally expected to cost $787 billion. Now it is estimated to come in with a final price tag of $862 billion. What do you get for that kind of money, he wondered? The initial spending appears to work, since the government is spending money without raising taxes to pay for it. But the money has to come from somewhere. Tax receipts inevitably have to go up. Both spending and taxing are subject to “multipliers,” says Barro. Mr. Barro calculates that each dollar of public stimulus spending has a net cost of $1.50 in foregone private spending. A “bad deal…there’s no such thing as a free lunch,” even in fiscal stimulus, he concludes.
Stimulus spending is a net negative in the US; what about in China? The China story is largely a stimulus story too. China’s stimulus, compared to GDP, is the world’s largest ever – four times the size of America’s stimulus program.
When bank loan volume is determined by central planners you are asking for trouble. But last year, faced with a downturn in demand from their main customer, the Chinese authorities put out the word to banks – increase loans. Loan volume approximately doubled – to $1.4 trillion – the greatest increase, in GDP terms, ever – equal to a quarter of the entire national output.
Investment spending has long been an oversize part of the Chinese economy. As Americans spent too much, the Chinese invested too much in factories in order to make them things they could buy – just as the Japanese had done before them. Investment spending in China increased 200% since 2001, making it the world’s biggest buyer of raw materials – by a huge margin. Chinese output is less than 10% of the world’s total but China consumes 30% of the world’s aluminum, 40% of its copper and 47% of its steel. Where does all this stuff go? Thanks to China’s visionary central planners, it goes just where it is not needed most – into more infrastructure and output capacity. Last year, 90% of China’s growth came from this fixed investment spending.
There are about five times as many rivers in the US and five times as many cars…but China now has nearly as many bridges…three quarters as much road surface. But with easy credit, the connivance of local officials, and the blessing of the central government, it builds more.
Last year, approximately one out of every four square feet of commercial office space in Beijing were empty – about 100 million square feet of zombie space. All over town are dark buildings…the Minsheng Financial Center…concrete and glass towers on Financial Street…the China Life Plaza…the Bank of Communications.
This year, the vacancy rate will go up to 30%…possibly 50%, depending on whose estimates you believe. In Eastern Beijing, officials are doubling the size of the Central Business District, even though the vacancy rate there is above 35% already. Overall, the city will add another 13 million square feet of commercial space.
Outside Beijing, the zombies are multiplying too. Whole cities are empty. And in the suburbs of Huairou, a mock alpine village…with a 200ft clock tower…rises improbably in the industrial suburbs. Called the “Spring Legend,” its publicists must be the same people who write fortune cookie forecasts: “The air is so fresh it penetrates your heart,” says the sales pitch. You would normally dismiss such descriptions as puffery. But in China’s industrial suburbs the air is often so acidic that it might penetrate the skull too.
National politicians determine the availability of capital. Local ones have a hand in ‘investing’ it. Typically, development projects involve bankers, developers, and local politicians – much like Japan’s huge public works’ projects of the past 20 years. Local governments are deep in debt – with total local government debt equal to about a third of GDP. But they keep spending. In Huaxi, for example, they’re still planning to build the world’s second tallest building, a few feet shorter than Dubai’s pyrrhic monument. Huaxi is also the home of the New Sky Village…another project that is lost in the toxic clouds.
Property prices are still spiking up. People are still speculating. Ships with dirt and rocks still head for Chinese ports. The capital spending boom goes on.
It looks like growth. But it is zombie growth. People build bridges to nowhere rather than working for profit-making enterprises. Concrete is used to put up cities where no one lives. Savings that might have been used to start a new bank is instead used to prop up an old one.
Japan has been doing it for years. Encouraged by government miscues in the ’80s, private industry created Japan’s zombies. Then, after the bubble burst, the government kept them alive. They’ve been sucking blood from the living ever since.
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The Christian Science Monitor has assembled a diverse group of the best economy-related bloggers out there. Our guest bloggers are not employed or directed by the Monitor and the views expressed are the bloggers' own, as is responsibility for the content of their blogs. To contact us about a blogger, click here. To add or view a comment on a guest blog, please go to the blogger's own site by clicking on the link above. | {
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BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) (TSE:BB) may not immediately start producing Android-based smartphones. But the company’s CEO John Chen acknowledged the potential for tapping into other ecosystems. Speaking at the Code Conference, Chen said the Canadian company now has 80% chances of survival. He said in March that the company had 50% survival chances. Many on the Wall Street have written off BlackBerry, saying it’s a lost case.
BlackBerry is neither dead nor dying
However, its latest low-cost Z3 smartphone has been a hit in its target market Indonesia. The device sold out on the first day of its launch. BBM adoption rate for Android and iOS has also been above expectations. BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) (TSE:BB) plans to launch the Windows Phone version of its messaging service later this year. It has eliminated the inventory risk by partnering with Foxconn Technology Co Ltd (TPE:2354) to manufacture smartphones. Could it be that the Waterloo-based company is on the road to recovery. At least John Chen thinks so.
Charlie Munger: Invert And Use “Disconfirming Evidence” Charlie Munger is considered to be one of the best investors and thinkers alive today. His thoughts and statements on investment research, investment psychology, and general rational behavior are often incredibly insightful. Anyone can learn something from this billionaire investor and philosopher. Q2 2020 hedge fund letters, conferences and more If you’re looking for value Read More
John Chen admitted that not everything is rosy at BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) (TSE:BB)’s headquarters amid continued losses and shrinking market share. But he said the company is neither dead nor dying. He expressed confidence his team is capable enough to “save the patient.” Chen didn’t clearly stated that BlackBerry would adopt Android OS for its future smartphones. But he did acknowledge the importance of tapping into other ecosystems.
IDC forecasts BlackBerry’s smartphone market share to shrink to 0.3% in 2018
BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) (TSE:BB) CEO admitted that his predecessor Thorsten Heins got distracted by trying to appeal to the masses all at the same time. Chen said Heins cast his nets a little too broadly. The company is expected to launch new smartphones in the fourth quarter of this year. The new handsets will have bigger screens, full keyboard and old productive features.
While Chen is trying to revive BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) (TSE:BB), research firm IDC estimates the company’s smartphone shipments to plunge 50% this year to 9.7 million units, including the recently launched Z3 in Indonesia. It’s global smartphone market share is expected to slip to 0.8% in 2014 and 0.3% by 2018.
BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) (TSE:BB) shares surged 5.09% to $7.66 at 12:07 PM EDT on Thursday. | {
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OTTAWA—Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau spoke out in favour of the Keystone XL pipeline on Thursday, in front of a Washington audience largely opposed to the controversial proposal to ship oil from Canada to the United States.
At a conference organized by the Centre for American Progress, which has long been a staunch opponent of Keystone, Trudeau said: “I’m actually supportive of the Keystone pipeline because it’s an extremely important energy infrastructure piece for both of our countries.”
He acknowledged that the challenge was to demonstrate the pipeline could be built in a way that wouldn’t harm the environment — a task at which he hinted Prime Minister Stephen Harper has fallen short.
But Trudeau also said: “This isn’t the place to air domestic grievances” — a dig at NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair, who sounded warnings about Keystone and the environment when he went to Washington earlier this year.
“The challenge is to demonstrate that it can be done in the sense that we’re protecting our environment and making sure that we’re making the right gains toward sustainable energy sources in the long run,” Trudeau said.
In 2011, the Centre for American Progress issued a statement on Keystone, making clear its opposition to the plan, which still awaits a decision from President Barack Obama on whether it will go ahead or be blocked. Harper’s government and the government of Alberta have spent a considerable amount of time in the U.S. lobbying for Keystone.
The centre said in its 2011 statement: “At a time when the United States should be doing everything in its power to reduce carbon dioxide pollution and speed the transition to cleaner fuels, the Keystone XL pipeline would be a step backward. Getting oil from Canada’s tarsands is a dirty business.”
And in an interview during a recent trip to Canada, the organization’s president Neera Tanden said the centre remains opposed.
Matt Browne, a senior fellow at the centre, acknowledged that Trudeau was not talking to a pro-Keystone crowd on Thursday, but he said on Twitter that many in the room had found the Liberal leader’s position “compelling” and “balanced.”
Trudeau was appearing on a panel with former Australian prime minister Julia Gillard and Madeleine Albright, former U.S. secretary of state. Their discussion was a wide-ranging one on how to further “progressive” parties and policies.
All three agreed that politics in their countries was being damaged by cynicism and voter anger.
Gillard, who was dumped as leader by her own Labor party earlier this year, said: “It is an easy age for slogans.”
Trudeau said that public anger is being fuelled by frustration about shrinking economic prospects for the middle class.
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“We are going through a period of anxiety,” he said.
“Over the past 30 years, though even in Canada we’ve had tremendous growth in our economy, over 100 per cent over the past generation, median family incomes have only increased 14 per cent. So the middle class hasn’t had a raise, not a real one, in 30 years.”
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There’s a strand of thought that says that belief in the supernatural is founded upon a misunderstanding of how the world works (see: You either believe in it all, or you don’t).
On the other hand, there’s another perspective that says the cognitive problem is with the atheists. Belief in gods, according to this school of thought, is basically an extension of our ability to ‘mentalise’ – or get inside the heads of other people (see: Atheists lack empathy and understanding).
To settle this, Marjaana Lindeman and colleagues from the University of Helsinki subjected nearly 2,800 Finns (roughly half and half Christians and non-believers) to a battery of online questionnaires. These included tests of their ability to recognize emotions depicted in photographs of actors, and their ability to think clearly about the world.
It’s worth spelling out how they tested ability to think clearly. The first test was around something called teleological bias. This happens when people habitually think in terms of things existing or happening for a purpose, even though logically they do not. For example, agreeing with the statement “Earthworms tunnel underground to aerate the soil”.
The other was ‘core knowledge’ confusion. Basically this involves confusing metaphors with reality – for example thinking that when someone says “A house knows its history” they mean it literally does!
Lindeman and colleagues ran all this data through a structural equation model (which is a way of seeing how all the different measurements relate to each other statistically, and teasing out causal relationships) to see whether they predicted religious beliefs, paranormal beliefs, or a more general belief that life events happen for a purpose.
What they found was that thinking ability (especially core knowledge) was strongly related to a lack of religious and paranormal belief, and also a lack of belief of an underlying purpose for life events. That’s what the line in the graphic show. The numbers next to each line show how strong the connection is.
Empathic ability was only weakly correlated. In particular, inability to read emotions in the eyes (associated with autism) had no connection with either thinking ability or beliefs.
However, there’s also been speculation that maybe the two types of thinking interact. Maybe, the suggestion is, it’s the combination of strong empathic and mentalizing skills with weak thinking ability that leads to religious and paranormal beliefs.
They found that is indeed the case.
They looked at those who they called hyper-empathising – scoring high on empathy but low on ability to pick out structural details in the world around them. So they asked questions about whether or not their subjects notice details such as how furniture in the room is constructed, or can easily navigate in their mind round their local roads and motorways.
These people, the hyper-empathic, were strongly more religious. Lindeman and colleagues comment:
The results imply that individuals with high self-reported empathy and interest in people, coupled with poor self-reported understanding of physical causality and low interest in technical, motor, abstract, and organizable systems, had more supernatural beliefs than others.
So does science confirm the stereotype here, at least?
Lindeman, M., Svedholm-Häkkinen, A., & Lipsanen, J. (2015). Ontological confusions but not mentalizing abilities predict religious belief, paranormal belief, and belief in supernatural purpose Cognition, 134, 63-76 DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2014.09.008
This article by Tom Rees was first published on Epiphenom. It is licensed under Creative Commons. | {
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BRUNSWICK, Maine (AP) — An animal rights group wants to build a “roadside memorial” in Maine near the site where a truck crash that spilled 7,000 pounds of live lobster.
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) said they have asked the Maine Department of Transportation for permission to build a tombstone. The tombstone would ask drivers to “Try Vegan.”
Authorities say the August 22 crash in Brunswick happened when a driver drifted off the right shoulder and hit an embankment on Route 1. The truck was carrying 60 to 70 crates of lobster, and traffic was backed up for hours as crews worked to clean up the crustaceans.
"Some lobsters were loose on the ground from being spilled over and we just kind of went to work and tried to do as much as we could to save the ones we could," said William Moir with the Brunswick Police Department.
PETA Executive VP Tracy Reiman said the organization wants “to pay tribute” to the lobsters with a “memorial urging people to help prevent future suffering.”
"It just seems a little extreme to me. I mean, I am all for animal rights, but I just don't understand putting up a tombstone for some lobsters. I'm sorry," resident Timothy Smith said.
"I'm not cruel to animals, but that goes way too far sometimes. And a monument on the highway, we don't even put monuments up for people who die," Janie Roy added. "What's the difference between them falling on the road and dying or being thrown in boiling hot water? And we eat them every single day. Either way, they're dead lobsters."
PETA said the point of the memorial is to remind people not to eat lobsters or other animals. The group calls lobsters "intelligent individuals who use complex signals to establish social relationships." | {
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indulgingb said: . I chatted with this couple. They are in Florida. Click to expand...
Can you tell me where I can find more of her video? I like her a lot. What were they like when you chatted with them? Where can I find them to chat? Sorry, I asked too much. | {
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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 3/1/2013 (2812 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
WAYNE GLOWACKI / FREE PRESS ARCHIVES Prairie 360 is set to open in October 2013.
A city landmark and iconic restaurant location will be opening its doors once again after a four-year hiatus.
Restaurateur Noel Bernier, who owns Hermanos Steakhouse and Wine Bar and Corrientes Argentine Pizzeria, will be finalizing negotiations to reopen the revolving restaurant at the Fort Garry Place later this month. The restaurant is set to open in October 2013.
"It’s just really exciting. It’s a blessing to be able to reopen this space to the city," Bernier said.
Prairie 360 will take on a local, Manitoba-grown food concept, he said, offering a taste of the best Manitoba has to offer.
Ace Burpee and Chrissy Troy of Virgin 103 will be participating in a web-based series with the executive chef of Prairie 360 this summer to cultivate culinary inspiration for the restaurant.
"They’ll go to farms, Lake Winnipeg fishing, just really explore the root of what is our food and what kind of food do we have in Manitoba," he said.
The space has been closed since 2008. It has previously been home to the Royal Crown Revolving Restaurant, operated by the Gill Family Trust. | {
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HALIFAX -- The Canadian Food Inspection Agency is recalling a brand of salami sold in Nova Scotia due to concerns over botulism.
The agency says the caraway-pepper salami sold by Webbersfood Ltd. is being pulled from store shelves because it may permit the growth of the dangerous bacteria.
The meat was sold unlabeled at the Historic Farmers' Market in the Brewery Square in Halifax on April 9.
The agency says there have been no reported illnesses linked to the salami.
It says the meat should be thrown out or returned to the store where it was purchased.
Food contaminated with the clostridium botulinum toxin may not look or smell spoiled, but can cause nausea, vomiting, fatigue, dizziness and death in some cases. | {
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I had the honor to meet one of the greatest investors of all time, Jean-Marie Eveillard (Trades, Portfolio), on the day that the winter storm hit New York City. The weather was inclement, but Mr. Eveillard offered the warmest welcome to a young value investor he barely knew. In a conversation that lasted a more than an hour, I learned why he is such an incredible investor as well as a remarkable human being.
We started our conversation with a discussion on value investing. Mr.Eveillard reiterated that value investing either clicks with your or not and perhaps only less than 10% of the market participants are genuine value investors.The important thing to remember is that value investing works, over the long run. He gave us an example of a Japanese stock that was flat for 4 years before tripling in price. Non-value investors may say too bad it was flat for four years before it worked out. Genuine value investors would say if you think the stock will worth three times 5 years from now, it does not matter whether it triples during the last year or progressively throughout the 5 year period. This way of thinking can not be taught.
Genuine value investors can also tolerate short term under-performance in order to achieve better long term results. Mr.Eveillard cited the example of the First Eagle Fund he used to manage to illustrate this point. During the tech bubble, his fund lagged badly for 3 years in a row and the the fund’s AUM went from $6 billion to $2.5 billion by early 2000. He did what was right for the shareholders and eventually he was proven right. He admitted that it was an extremely difficult time because there were times he thought he was guilty of not understanding the internet companies and how to value them.
We then moved on to the topic of short term nature of the sell-side research, which is often targeted to the 90% non-value investor clients. Value investors often find sell-side research ludicrous but we have to understand that they have to conduct the business that way because the dominating majority of their clients share the short-term bias.
When asked about how he spend his day, Mr. Eveillard said that he spent half of his day just reading books. No surprise here as this is how Warren Buffett (Trades, Portfolio) and Seth Klarman (Trades, Portfolio) spend their days. Mr. Eveillard recalled that Buffett mentioned many years ago that he is a voracious reader and reading voraciously is an advantage developed in the long run. You may not be able to reap the benefits of reading in the beginning but over time you will feel the benefit. A glance at his desk reinforced his point. Newspapers, magazines, books, annual reports, and industry reports took more than half of the space of his desk. Everything is printed out. Nothing digital.
He spent the other half of his day talking to First Eagle’s analysts. The analysts have three duties: keeping track of the current holdings; researching potential ideas from portfolio managers; researching their own ideas. Mr. Eveillard respects his analysts’ ideas and he would gave them the green light to research their ideas most of the time. He said some of the analysts have the preference to analyze complicated ideas and he told them there is nothing wrong to analyze simple ideas. In fact, Buffett’s best ideas were all simple ideas. But again, it is probably human nature to think that you are more likely to gain an edge in complicated situations.
Mr. Eveillard further pointed out that he told his students in Columbia’s value investing program that you don’t have to know everything about a business when making an investment decision. Instead, he instructed the students to figure out the five or six major advantages and disadvantages about the business and ignore the trivial. An inevitable risk with this approach involves missing a key advantage or disadvantage. However, if you get most of them right, the results will likely to be fine. Most of the students found it hard to believe because they think the more they know about the business, the better they can value the business. His experiences have proved otherwise.
Moving on to the topic of the Graham approach and the Buffett approach, Mr. Eveillard opined that Graham’s approach takes less time and involves less judgment, but at the same time less profitable than Buffett’s approach. Buffett’a approach takes much more time and involves more judgment on the qualitative side. However, the biggest advantage of Buffett’s approach is the upside potential created by a marvelous business’s ability to compound returns indefinitely. The best ideas tend to be a Buffett’s business trading at Graham’s price.
We ended our meeting with a discussion of smartphones and tablets. Mr. Eveillard said he never used them. In fact, he does not even have a cell phone, not to mention an email address.
As I walked out of his room, I wondered whether I should switch from my iPhone to a non-smartphone.
About the author: | {
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The guy I'm checking out is checking out my wife. | {
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A privacy group has filed an emergency request to block the Trump election integrity commission’s demand for states to turn over voter data, saying the information, if made public, would be a severe invasion of Americans’ rights.
The Electronic Privacy Information Center filed its lawsuit Monday afternoon in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly has scheduled the administration’s reply by Wednesday afternoon.
The lawsuit is the latest resistance to the voter commission, run by Vice President Mike Pence and Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach.
Mr. Kobach’s letter last week requesting voter information from all 50 states — including names, dates of birth, addresses, voting and registration history and partial Social Security numbers — has set off a firestorm of criticism.
A number of Democratic governors and state elections officials said they would refuse to cooperate, as did some Republicans.
Dozens of voting and privacy groups have also called on the National Association of Secretaries of State to weigh in, calling the Trump request an unprecedented demand and urging states to refuse to play ball. The association says it is gathering input from its members.
The Electronic Privacy Information Center says in its lawsuit that the voter commission’s request has several problems, starting with the way the panel has asked for information. It says the email address and the file-sharing system that the commission suggested are insecure.
Under federal law, the commission was required to conduct a privacy assessment before asking for this type of data.
The privacy center also says all information could become public, creating a road map for identity theft.
“There is already evidence in the record that the Commission has placed and will place voter data at risk,” the lawsuit says. | {
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Javaid Ali Paisley murder police report 'encouraging leads' Published duration 20 July 2012
image caption Mr Ali died in hospital after being stabbed in his shop in Paisley
Police investigating the murder of a Renfrewshire shopkeeper have said there was a good response to the BBC's Crimewatch programme.
Javaid Ali, 48, was stabbed in Sunshine Grocers, Paisley, on 15 June. He died in hospital on 29 June.
On Thursday's edition of Crimewatch, Strathclyde Police made a fresh appeal for help to trace his killer.
A reward of £50,000 has been offered for information leading to the arrest of the person responsible.
Det Ch Insp Duncan Sloan revealed that two calls were of particular interest.
He said: "The first is from a male who says he knows information and was going to to attend at Paisley police office.
"This is really encouraging and I would welcome this but I would ask him to please call back so we can speak to him."
Det Ch Insp Sloan also gave details of a caller who had named a suspect.
He added: "We had a call from an anonymous male who named an individual responsible and stated that he'd seen a weapon that had been used.
"Clearly this is important and I would urge that caller to please call back.
"I'll be sitting waiting for that phone call."
Two weeks ago, Abbas Ali, 25, one of Mr Ali's three sons, issued a statement appealing for help.
'Trauma and hurt'
He urged anyone with information to "think of the trauma and hurt" caused to his family and contact police.
The statement read by Mr Ali said: "Our family is absolutely devastated at the loss of my father, Javaid Ali. He was a wonderful father, husband, son and friend.
"He meant so much to us and it is heartbreaking to know we will never see or speak to him again.
image caption The attack took place at the Sunshine Licensed Grocers in Paisley on 15 June
"I cannot put into words the suffering this has caused our family and it will take a long time for us to come to terms with what has happened."
Mr Ali said he could not have asked for more from his father whom he described as "an exceptionally hard worker and a great provider for our family".
"He always put our needs first and did his best to provide my brothers and I with opportunities that he did not have when he was younger," he said.
More than 60 officers are working on the inquiry and have visited 700 homes and taken up to 170 statements so far.
Detectives are still trying to trace a man who was seen walking from the direction of Sunshine Grocers at about 15:00 on the day Mr Ali was attacked, and a young woman carrying Aldi shopping bags. | {
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In 2017, Philip Pullman surprised fans of his classic trilogy His Dark Materials with the first book in a new trilogy set in the same universe, The Book of Dust. In Slate, Katy Waldman wrote that reading Volume 1, La Belle Sauvage, “is like standing in a room in which suddenly all of the windows have blown open at once.”
This October, Pullman will release Volume 2 of The Book of Dust, The Secret Commonwealth. See the cover above. In La Belle Sauvage, Lyra was a baby. But now she’s 20, a student at St. Sophia’s College, and about to embark on a new adventure. Are you ready for a grown-up Lyra? Come back Monday to read a U.S. exclusive excerpt from the new book. | {
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Cian Healy has been forced to pull out of the British and Irish Lions tour to Australia due to an ankle ligament injury.
Healy suffered the problem during Wednesday's tour match against Western Force in Perth, with scans revealing significant ligament damage around the ankle.
An official Lions press release said that the recovery time was expected to exceed the duration of the tour, and the news comes just hours after he was cleared of biting Brett Sheehan during the Force game.
Welsh prop Gethin Jenkins has also been ruled out of tomorrow's match against the Queensland Reds due to a calf injury, with Scotland's Ryan Grant called into the squad as cover.
Mako Vunipola will replace Jenkins in the Lions line-up against the Reds.
On Healy's injury, head coach Warren Gatland said: "Firstly, our thoughts are with Cian.
"It has been a day of mixed emotions for him after being quite rightly being cleared of foul play but then the scan revealing the extent of the damage to his ankle.
"He has made a big contribution on and off the field in the last two weeks and we wish him well in his recovery." | {
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The interest rates on FDs vary according to separate maturity baskets across different banks.
Fixed deposit (FD) is a financial instrument provided by banks, non-banking financial companies (NBFCs) and post offices. In case of a bank fixed deposit, the annual returns on FDs do not change according to geopolitical and macroeconomic uncertainties. However, the interest rates on FDs vary according to separate maturity baskets across different banks. Consider this- on deposits of Rs 1 crore for one year, SBI pays an FD interest rate of 6.8 per cent. Private sector peers HDFC Bank and ICICI Bank pay 7.3 per cent and 6.9 per cent respectively, on the same amount and maturity.
(Also read: Investment In Five-Year Tax-Saving Fixed Deposit Can Fetch These Returns)
Given below are the latest fixed deposit interest rates offered by SBI, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank and Indian Overseas Bank:
State Bank of India (SBI)
The following FD interest rates are applicable on deposits below Rs 1 crore, according to the bank's website - sbi.co.in:
Tenors Revised For Public w.e.f. 28.11.2018 Revised for Senior Citizens w.e.f. 28.11.2018 7 days to 45 days 5.75% 6.25% 46 days to 179 days 6.25% 6.75% 180 days to 210 days 6.35% 6.85% 211 days to less than 1 year 6.4% 6.9% 1 year to less than 2 year 6.8% 7.3% 2 years to less than 3 years 6.8% 7.3% 3 years to less than 5 years 6.8% 7.3% 5 years and up to 10 years 6.85% 7.35% (Source: sbi.co.in)
HDFC Bank
The following FD interest rates are applicable on deposits below Rs. 1 crore with effect from November 6, 2018 according to the bank's website - hdfcbank.com:
Period Interest rate on FD less than Rs. 1 Crore General public Senior citizen 7 - 14 days 3.50% 4.00% 15 - 29 days 4.25% 4.75% 30 - 45 days 5.75% 6.25% 46 - 60 days 6.25% 6.75% 61 - 90 days 6.25% 6.75% 91 days - 6 months 6.25% 6.75% 6 months 1 day- 6 months 3 days 6.75% 7.25% 6 months 4 days 6.75% 7.25% 6 months 5 days- 9 months 6.75% 7.25% 9 months 1 day- 9 months 3 days 7.10% 7.60% 9 months 4 days 7.10% 7.60% 9 months 5 days - 9 months 15 days 7.10% 7.60% 9 months 16 days 7.10% 7.60% 9 months 17 days < 1 Year 7.10% 7.60% 1 Year 7.30% 7.80% 1 year 1 day - 1 year 3 days 7.30% 7.80% 1 year 4 days 7.30% 7.80% 1 year 5 days - 1 Year 15 days 7.30% 7.80% 1 Year 16 days 7.30% 7.80% 1 year 17 days - 2 Years 7.30% 7.80% 2 years 1 day - 2 Years 15 days 7.40% 7.90% 2 Years 16 days 7.40% 7.90% 2 years 17 days - 3 Years 7.40% 7.90% 3 years 1 day - 5 years 7.25% 7.75% 5 Years 1 day - 8 Years 6.50% 7.00% 8 Years 1 day - 10 Years 6.50% 7.00% (Source: hdfcbank.com)
ICICI Bank
The following FD interest rates are applicable on deposits below Rs. 1 crore, according to the bank's website - icicibank.com:
Rate of Interest (% p.a.) w.e.f November 15, 2018 Tenure Period General Senior Citizen 7 days to 14 days 4% 4.5% 15 days to 29 days 4.25% 4.75% 30 days to 45 days 5.5% 6% 46 days to 60 days 6% 6.5% 61 days to 90 days 6.25% 6.75% 91 days to 120 days 6.25% 6.75% 121 days to 184 days 6.25% 6.75% 185 days to 289 days 6.5% 7% 290 days to less than 1 year 6.75% 7.25% 1 year to 389 days 6.9% 7.4% 390 days to 2 years 7.1% 7.6% 2 years 1 day up to 3 years 7.5% 8% 3 years 1 day up to 5 years 7.25% 7.75% 5 years 1 day up to 10 years 7% 7.5% 5 years Tax saver FD (max up to Rs. 1.50 lakh) 7.25% 7.75% (Source: icicibank.com)
Indian Overseas Bank:
Given below are the Indian Overseas Bank FD interest rates on deposits below Rs 1 crore as mentioned on bank's website-iob.in:
Period of Deposit New Rate (%) effective from 05-04-2018 Up to less than Rs 1 Cr (General public) 7-14 days* 4.50% 15-29 days 4.50% 30-45 Days 4.50% 46 -60 Days 4.60% 61-90 days 4.60% 91-120 days 5.25% 121-179 days 5.50% 180 -269 days 5.75% 270 days - < 1 year 6.25% 1 yr - <2 yrs 6.60% 2 yrs to < 3yrs 6.75% 3 Yrs and above 6.80%
Additional interest rate of 0.50 per cent is available for deposits of senior citizens for all tenors, noted Indian Overseas Bank on it's website. | {
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"The federal government is all about keeping the status quo," attorney Jess Marchese tells me. "They're not going to cede power."
I had asked Marchese, who represents Eric Parker in legal proceedings resulting from the 2014 Bundy ranch standoff over control of western lands, why he thought the federal government was taking yet another crack at his client who, along with codefendant O. Scott Drexler, will face the third trial in a row on a diminishing set of charges. The Las Vegas lawyer's take was that this had become a matter of pride for both the federal government and for Acting U.S. Attorney Steven W. Myhre after juries repeatedly frustrated federal prosecutors.
A mistrial was declared in April by U.S. District Court Judge Gloria Navarro after two of the six defendants in that trial were convicted on lesser charges, while jurors voted 10-2 in favor of acquitting two and split on the others, according to news reports. Just last week, jurors returned not a single "guilty" verdict in the retrial of the four remaining defendants. Found "not guilty" on all charges, Richard Lovelien of Oklahoma and Steven Stewart of Idaho were released after the federal government failed twice in its efforts to send them to prison. That left two defendants in limbo after the charges against them resulted in hung juries. Again.
With regard to Parker and Drexler, "how close was the jury to reaching verdicts on the unresolved charges?" I asked Marchese.
"There was one holdout," he told me, obviously frustrated. That is, the jury voted 11-1 to acquit across the board. That one holdout allows the federal government to muster the resources of the federal government to try yet again in hopes that a third set of jurors will finally believe the government and convict Parker and Drexler of assaulting a federal officer and carrying a firearm in the commission of a crime and (in the case of Parker) two additional counts of using a firearm to threaten a federal officer.
The pending third trial is scheduled for September, though an appeal by Marchese may delay matters (and will likely nudge the pending trial of Cliven, Ammon, and Ryan Bundy even further into the future). That penciled-in date is remarkable when you consider that federal juries are traditionally almost rubber stamps for prosecutors.
"The rate of conviction remained over 90 percent, as it has since Fiscal Year 2001," the United States Attorneys' Statistical Report boasted in 2012. A year later, the report noted that conviction rates had crept over 92 percent since 2010.
So it has to be frustrating both institutionally, for the federal government, and on an individual level for prosecutors to be turned away, again and again, by jurors unimpressed by the government's case, or sympathetic to defendants.
Jurors did much the same in a related case last year when they acquitted Ammon Bundy, Ryan Bundy, and five codefendants of charges resulting from the takeover of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. That unexpected verdict was attributed by some to jury nullification and by many others to juror reaction to overreaching federal prosecution.
"It should be known that all 12 jurors felt that this verdict was a statement regarding the various failures of the prosecution to prove 'conspiracy' in the count itself—and not any form of affirmation of the defense's various beliefs, actions or aspirations," one of the actual jurors told The Oregonian.
Ironically, the Malheur takeover started as a protest against an earlier exercise in prosecutorial excess in another case involving dispute over control of western lands.
Overreaching by the government may have played a similar role in the latest trial. Judge Navarro threw Parker off the stand—ironically, right after he mentioned the First Amendment—cutting short his testimony in his own defense and even striking it from the record. Even before that point, the judge "barred the defense from referencing constitutional rights to freely assemble and to bear arms. She also prohibited mention of alleged misconduct or excessive force by law enforcement," reported the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
According to Marchese, who spoke to jurors after the trial, Judge Navarro's heavy-handed courtroom management played a major role in the jury's refusal to bring a single "guilty" verdict. Defending the status quo, refusing to cede power, the feds pushed too hard and had their anticipated victory stripped from them by offended representatives of the people in the courtroom.
And as with federal conduct of these trials overall, so it is with the behavior of Acting U.S. Attorney Steven W. Myhre.
"He's taking it personally," Marchese says of his federal counterpart's performance in the courtroom. "He started name-calling against my client in court."
"There's nothing more dangerous than a coward with a weapon," Myhre said of Parker in an argument that drew gasps in the courtroom and that may have helped to convince 11 members of the jury to favor acquittal. (The Justice Department did not respond to a request for comment.)
In fact, it's hard to escape the conclusion that these trials have become extended grudge matches by the federal government and its employees against people challenging their authority in general, and westerners pushing back over control of public lands in particular. Independent of these armed protests, Utah and other states are increasingly pushing Washington, D.C. to surrender control over the vast reaches of land that are often arbitrarily managed and regulated to the detriment of local residents. "The armed occupation of federal buildings is inexcusable, but so are federal land-management abuses and prosecutorial overreach, the Wall Street Journal editorialized last year.
That has federal employees' panties in a bunch.
"Parts of the Sagebrush West are beginning to resemble Eastern Ukraine," complained Jeff Ruch, Executive Director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, in a press release regarding the Bundy ranch conflict.
Well, that's… ridiculous.
But if you're accustomed to always getting your way, and you suddenly discover that you're resented and resisted by many of the people around you, even a little pushback can drive you into a panic.
Marchese tells me that, if this was a civil trial and Myhre faced the prospect of paying defendants' legal fees after yet another loss, he might act more reasonably. But I don't know. Grudge matches are, by definition, unreasonable. And no matter what the ultimate cost, the feds can't seem to bring themselves to take "not guilty" for an answer. | {
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All right, okay, it’s time to come clean – and be honest! Does it grind your gears when people make even the tiniest grammatical error? Does your restless leg syndrome kick in or your eye start twitching… to the point where you feel a deep, intense need to correct them all? From the differences between “your” and “you’re” to “there,” “their,” and “they’re” and “where” and “wear” – don’t even get started on misspelling “the” with “teh.”
So, what’s the verdict? Does that sound like you? Because if it does, even scientists will agree that you are a jerk. (No, that’s nota typo.) A University of Michigan study published in PLOS One pretty much proved it. [1] In fact, researchers believe they can trace your “Grammar Police” behavior all the way back to specific personality traits.
So, What Makes A Grammar Police?
83 people participated in the study which involved reading email responses to an ad for a housemate. Some responses were error-free while others included grammatical mistakes such as “teh” instead of “the” or the classic “too” vs “to” and “it’s” vs “its.” [1]Advertisement
After reading them, participants had to answer some questionnaires, one of which required them to judge the writer of the response based on the following perceived characteristics: [2]
I think I would be friends with this person
The writer would be a good housemate
The writer seems a lot like me
The writer seems friendly
The writer seems more sophisticated than most of my friends
The writer seems less intelligent than most of my friends
The writer seems conscientious
The writer seems considerate
The writer seems likeable
The writer seems trustworthy
The other questionnaire was personality test for the participants and included the following five traits: extraversion, agreeability, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness. Afterwards, they were also asked whether or not they spotted any grammatical errors or typos and, if so, how much it irked them.
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As you would expect, based on these combined responses, everyone gave lower ratings to people who made more typos and grammatical mix-ups. However, when it came to personality traits, researchers noticed something interesting…
Compared to extraverts who tended to let typos slide, introverts judged people who made grammatical errors more negatively and harshly. Researchers also noticed that participants who characterized themselves as less agreeable actually got more upset by grammatical errors. [3]
In other words, as Chris Weller wrote for Tech Insider, “People who correct other people’s typos can be some of the biggest nuisances around – not just because they’re pointing out flaws, but for the added conceit of thinking they’re doing you a favor.” [4]
Is there a member of the grammar police who keeps sticking their nose into your life? You may want to send the link to this article their way – but only the link. (Wouldn’t want to risk making a typo or grammatical error now, would you?)
AdvertisementOr are you that member of the grammar police? If so, the next time you experience that deep-seated desire to correct someone’s typo or grammatical error, take a deep breath and reconsider… Because, ironically, your actions will speak louder than words. (And no one wants to be a jerk, right?) | {
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Proper Tail Calls (PTC) is a new feature in the ECMAScript 6 language. This feature was added to facilitate recursive programming patterns, both for direct and indirect recursion. Various other design patterns can benefit from PTC as well, such as code that wraps some functionality where the wrapping code directly returns the result of what it wraps. Through the use of PTC, the amount of memory needed to run code is reduced. In deeply recursive code, PTC enables code to run that would otherwise throw a stack overflow exception.
What is a Proper Tail Call?
Typically when calling a function, stack space is allocated for the data associated with making a function call. This data includes the return address, prior stack pointer, arguments to the function, and space for the function’s local values. This space is called a stack frame. A call made to a function in tail position will reuse the stack space of the calling function. A function call is in tail position if the following criteria are met:
The calling function is in strict mode.
The calling function is either a normal function or an arrow function.
The calling function is not a generator function.
The return value of the called function is returned by the calling function.
When a function call is in tail position, ECMAScript 6 mandates that such a call must reuse the stack space of its own frame instead of pushing another frame onto the call stack. To emphasize, ECMAScript 6 requires that a call in tail position will reuse the caller’s stack space. The calling function’s frame is called a tail deleted frame as it is no longer on the stack once it makes a tail call. This means that the tail deleted function will not show up in a stack trace. It is important to note that PTC differs from Tail Call Optimization, which is a discretionary optimization that many optimizing compilers will make for various performance reasons.
Benefits of Proper Tail Calls
PTC was added to ECMAScript primarily to reuse stack space. The reuse of the stack memory allows for recursive and tail call coding patterns common to functional programming and other programming paradigms. Using PTC, a program could make an unbounded number of consecutive tail calls without unboundedly growing the stack.
PTC provides other benefits as well. Programs that utilize PTC can see a reduced memory footprint because the garbage collector will be more likely to collect certain local objects. Programs that utilize PTC can also see an improvement in speed because there is less processing when returning from a tail called function.
Stack Space
Reduced stack usage can provide benefits in other ways as well. Modern computing devices incorporate tiered memory caches to reduce latency in memory accesses. Although these caches are generous in size, they are still finite. Reducing stack usage through the use of PTC also reduces the amount of cache space needed, freeing up cache space for other memory accesses.
Locally Allocated Objects
Consider a function that allocates a local object, but that object is never made visible to other code. The only references to such a local object will be through a pointer in the function’s stack frame or in a register that the function is using. Should the JavaScript virtual machine need to garbage collect memory, it will find a reference to such a local object by scanning the stack and the contents of the CPU’s registers. If that function makes a call to another function and that call is not a tail call, then any local objects of the calling function will not be collected until the calling function itself returns. However, if a function makes a tail call to another function, all local objects of the calling function can be garbage collected because there are no more stack references to the object.
Returning from a Tail Called Function
Another benefit of PTC is that when a leaf function returns, it bypasses all intermediate tail called functions and returns directly to the first caller that didn’t make a tail call. This eliminates all of the return processing of those intermediate functions. The deeper the call chain of successive tail calls, the more performance benefit this provides. This works for both direct and mutual recursion.
Examples
There are many algorithms that are best written using recursion. Many of those algorithms naturally take advantage of PTC, while others may require some reworking. Consider writing a program to compute the greatest common divisor (GCD) function using Euclid’s algorithm. The translation of Euclid’s algorithm into a program that utilizes PTC is simple, elegant, and natural:
"use strict" ; function gcd ( m , n ) { if ( ! n ) return m ; return gcd ( n , m % n ); }
The natural translation of other recursive mathematical functions can lead to recursive calls that are not in tail position. For example, a program that computes factorial (N!) is commonly written as:
"use strict" ; function factorial ( n ) { if ( ! n ) return 1 ; return n * factorial ( n - 1 ); }
In this function, the recursive call to factorial() is not in tail position because the return statement computes and returns the product of n and the result of the recursive call. As a reminder, to be in tail position, the return value of the called function must be the only thing returned by the calling function. With a little modification, we can rewrite factorial to utilize PTC as follows:
"use strict" ; function factorial ( n , partialFactorial = 1 ) { if ( ! n ) return partialFactorial ; return factorial ( n - 1 , n * partialFactorial ); }
This change puts the recursive call to factorial in tail position which allows the function to take advantage of PTC. The number of recursive calls and arithmetic operations is the same for both versions.
This next example involves the functions computeSquareRoot() , computePositiveSquareRoot() and iterativeSquareRoot() which are used to calculate the square roots of numbers using Newton’s Iterative method:
"use strict" ; function computeSquareRoot ( x ) { if ( ! x ) return "0" ; let imaginaryPart = "" ; if ( x < 0 ) { x = - x ; imaginaryPart = "i" ; } return computePositiveSquareRoot ( x ). toString () + imaginaryPart ; } function computePositiveSquareRoot ( x ) { let targetEpsilon = x / 10000000000 ; return iterativeSquareRoot ( x , x / 2 , targetEpsilon ); } function iterativeSquareRoot ( x , estimate , targetEpsilon ) { let newEstimate = (( x / estimate ) + estimate ) / 2 ; let delta = Math . abs ( estimate - newEstimate ); if ( delta < = targetEpsilon ) return newEstimate ; return iterativeSquareRoot ( x , newEstimate , targetEpsilon ); }
The top function, computeSquareRoot() , determines if the result will be a real or imaginary number and then calls computePositiveSquareRoot() , which sets up the iterative square process and returns the result of iterativeSquareRoot() . The call to computePositiveSquareRoot() in computeSquareRoot() is not in tail position since additional processing is done on the result of the call. All other function calls are tail position.
Suppose computeSquareRoot() is called with 99 as the argument. It will call computePositiveSquareRoot(99) , which will subsequently call iterativeSquareRoot(99, ...) . Using Web Inspector, we observed that iterativeSquareRoot() calls back to itself 6 times before returning a result. That result is returned directly back to computeSquareRoot, where it is converted to a string, saving the processing of 7 returns.
This last example shows the type of functional programming that PTC enables:
"use strict" ; function newList ( count ) { let head = { value : count , next : null }; while ( - - count ) head = { value : count , next : head }; return head ; } let count = 100000 ; let list = newList ( count ); function contains ( list , x ) { if ( ! list ) return false ; if ( list . value = = x ) return true ; return contains ( list . next , x ); } ... if ( contains ( list , someValue )) ...
The function contains() searches the list using tail recursion. For a list the size of 100,000 elements given in this example, most browsers will run out of stack memory and throw an exception. In strict mode, where contains() can take advantage of PTC, the program runs just fine. It is also interesting to note that even with a list size small enough to allow this code to run without PTC, using PTC results in the code running 2.5x faster.
Things to Note
There are a couple subtle, but minor issues to be aware of when using PTC. Remember that PTC is only available in strict mode and only for calls made from tail position. The other notable change involves the generation of stack traces. There are some non-standard ECMAScript features in JavaScript that work differently in the presence of PTC. These include Error.stack and the Console object’s stack trace. For example, say a tail called function gonnaThrowAnError() throws an Error object; the function that catches that Error will not see the function that called gonnaThrowAnError() in the Error object’s stack trace. As a general rule, the Console object’s stack trace will not include a function that made a tail call to another function. We call such frames tail deleted frames because its as if they are deleted from the stack when making a call.
Debugging PTC with ShadowChicken
Because PTC places a strict resource guarantee on stack usage, JavaScriptCore cannot keep around information for all tail deleted frames. Keeping around any extra resources, no matter how small, for an unbounded number of tail deleted frames is not possible because it could use an unbounded amount of memory and eventually exhaust the memory limits of the program. Given that tail calls do not keep around any information in the program’s executing state, debugging tail calls can be challenging when using an interactive debugging tool. Without any added machinery, the debugger will not know if a tail call did or did not occur. Because we want to make debugging tail calls inside Web Inspector a great experience, we have implemented mechanisms inside JavaScriptCore to keep around a shadow stack that will display a finite number, currently 128, tail deleted frames. This allows us to both provide strict guarantees on memory usage and to provide users of PTC the benefit of seeing the most important stack frames in their program inside Web Inspector.
We call our shadow stack implementation ShadowChicken. The name is an homage to the CHICKEN scheme interpreter. ShadowChicken uses a logging mechanism for constructing its shadow stack. The log works as follows:
On entry to a function, the function’s callee will log a prologue packet.
When making a tail call, the caller will log a tail packet just before the tail call occurs.
When an exception is thrown, ShadowChicken will log a throw packet.
To construct the shadow stack, ShadowChicken takes two inputs:
The log filled with a sequence of prologue, tail, and throw packets. The current top of the machine stack (note that the machine stack does not contain any frames that are tail deleted).
Given these two inputs, ShadowChicken is able to construct a shadow stack that includes tail-deleted frames. It will reconcile the machine stack with its log. Because the log has tail packets for when tail calls occurred, it is able to use the log to insert tail-deleted stack frames into the shadow stack to represent frames that were only present on the machine stack before a tail call occurred. ShadowChicken uses a constant amount of memory on top of the memory your program already uses. The log is fixed in size. Whenever ShadowChicken runs out of space in the log, it will perform its reconciliation algorithm to update its internal data structure about the state of the shadow stack. The shadow stack will contain at most 128 tail deleted frames, a number we believe strikes a good balance between programs that intentionally take advantage of PTC and programs that just happen to use PTC without the explicit intention of doing so.
Hooking Up ShadowChicken to Web Inspector
Because JavaScriptCore has the machinery for constructing a shadow stack, Web Inspector can use JavaScriptCore’s shadow stack in its debugger. This allows users of Web Inspector to interact with tail deleted stack frames as if they are real stack frames that are on the current machine stack.
Let’s see some interactions with Web Inspector and the iterative square root code to compute the square root of 99. After setting a breakpoint in iterativeSquareRoot() and invoking computeSquareRoot(99) , Web Inspector shows that we are paused, ready to return the result.
Web Inspector not only shows the frame we’re stopped in and the original caller, computeSquareRoot() , but also shows the seven tail deleted frames. These are highlighted in the above image. Tail deleted frames in Web Inspector show up with a gray ƒ icon to their left. As the next image shows, the variables in tail deleted frames can be examined as if the frame were a normal frame. The next image shows Web Inspector inspecting a tail deleted frame one level up from the leaf frame.
In this image, the local variables (circled) can be examined. The highlighted line in the program also shows where the tail deleted frame made a tail call from.
The next image shows what happens when single stepping from the breakpoint.
With on click of the step into button, Web Inspector now shows that we have returned directly to where computeSquareRoot() made the first tail call.
Summary
WebKit has ECMAScript 6 Proper Tail Calls and web developers are encouraged to take advantage of them to design programs in ways that were not possible before. Existing code can benefit as well. Web Inspector makes developing and debugging with PTC straightforward and intuitive.
The current Safari Technology Preview Release 4 has support for PTC. However, Web Inspector was only recently hooked up to work with ShadowChicken and therefore it is not in Safari Technology Preview Release 4. It is expected to be in the next Safari Technology Preview release. You can also try out ShadowChicken in Web Inspector by using a WebKit Nightly build.
Acknowledgements
This article was cowritten with Saam Barati from the JavaScriptCore team. We invite comments and feedback on WebKit’s PTC implementation. Feel free to get in touch with @msaboff, @saambarati, and @jonathandavis on Twitter. | {
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mumbai
Updated: Nov 12, 2018 14:25 IST
The Mumbai city district collector has asked Wilson Gymkhana on Marine Drive to take down the floodlights on its premises, marking the first such action taken by the government against light pollution in Mumbai.
Light pollution is the term used to describe excessive or obtrusive man-made light. In extreme cases, long-term exposure to excessive light could cause hallucinations, sleep disorders, and even lead to psychiatric problems.
The government said it issued the order as the gymkhana had not taken permissions to use the floodlights. and their high intensity could cause harm to the residents. The district administration’s decision to issue the order last week comes almost two years after light pollution complaints were raised by Chira Bazaar resident, Nilesh Desai. HT has a copy of the order.
The collector told HT the government will take action against the gymkhana if the lights are not removed within a month. HT first reported about the complaints against the lights more than year ago.
“We have been following up on the issue, based on complaints, for almost eight months,” said Shivaji Jondale, Mumbai city collector. “We held several meetings with the gymkhana, but they failed to clarify their stand. We then sent a team to check the status of these lights, and found they were high-intensity ones, the glare from which could cause harm.”
Jondale added that Wilson Gymkhana did not have the necessary permissions from the civic body or the collector’s office to erect floodlights. Wilson Gymkhana members, however, said they had approached all departments to get permissions. “We did not get the permissions, even after we applied for it,” said Amin Pawar, senior manager, Wilson Gymkhana. The gymkhana will fight the order, Pawar said. | {
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Deterioration Of Iraq's Massive Mosul Dam Reaches Crisis Point
The Mosul Dam in Iraq requires perpetual maintenance, which has been difficult amid Iraq's war with ISIS. If the dam collapses, the resulting wave could kill more than a million people. Dexter Filkins, staff writer for The New Yorker, speaks with NPR's Audie Cornish about what's being done to avert that potential disaster.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
In Iraq, a few miles from the frontlines of the war with ISIS looms another threat - the Mosul Dam. It's a massive piece of infrastructure that regulates the Tigris River and generates power to the region. But the dam also sits on weak rock that's rapidly eroding. For years, engineers have been warning that the dam is in danger of collapsing and creating a massive flood that could kill more than a million people. With the recent fighting, their calls have taken on new urgency.
Dexter Filkins recently visited the dam and writes about it in this week's New Yorker magazine. Welcome to the program.
DEXTER FILKINS: Hi.
CORNISH: So you actually went to this dam. And what was it like, and were you scared?
FILKINS: I did. I went to the dam. Well, it's - you know, it's enormous - you know, oceans of cement with this enormous lake behind it. But then I actually ventured into what's called the gallery of the dam, which is the very bottom of the dam. And so you can literally - when you're down there with all the workers, it feels like a mine shaft.
And what was so kind of scary was, it's wet. I mean the water - you know, the giant reservoir is pressing up against the walls right there, and the water's coming through. And you know, everything - everybody's splashing around, and they're trying to find these giant cavities underneath the dam, and they're basically very inexact. I mean it's kind of - again, kind of frightening.
They're sort of poking holes in the floor of the dam, and geysers are shooting up. And it's, like - that means there's a sinkhole under the dam. And so then they wheel up these enormous pumps, and they start pumping cement into it until they can't pump anymore. And that's about as exact as it gets.
CORNISH: Can you give us some sense? What are the scenarios should the dam collapse or be weakened?
FILKINS: It's pretty mind-boggling. Both the United States government and the United Nations have run kind of computer models. And I mean for starters, if the dam cracks, then the whole damn will essentially be gone in 12 hours. And what you would have likely is a hundred-foot wall of water that's probably a mile wide rolling down the Tigris.
And so Mosul, which is a city of 2 million people, would be under 80 feet of water in less than an hour. Most of Iraq's population lives along the Tigris River all the way down to Baghdad, all the way down to Basra. And I think that's the great fear, is that all of the population centers of Iraq would essentially be submerged.
And so the wave they imagine would take about three to four days to reach Baghdad. By the time it got there, it would be about 16 feet high. That's high enough to submerge most of the buildings in Baghdad. It would it would probably submerge the international airport. That would prevent relief crews from coming in.
And what is also terrifying is the level of concern that exists within the U.S. government over the likelihood of the dam's collapse. I mean you start reading these documents, and you're like, oh, my God, these guys are really worried.
CORNISH: As we mentioned, Iraq is obviously still dealing with a war. And how likely do you think it will be that they'll be able to fix this problem or to avoid the catastrophe you're describing?
FILKINS: Well, it's very strange. I mean you're at the dam, and it's this kind of looming - I guess what amounts to an environmental catastrophe. But the ISIS front lines are almost close enough to see. They're just a few miles down the road.
There's a team of Italian engineers - they're from an Italian dam construction company - that has been flown in. They feel pretty confident that they can fix it in time. I think that on one hand, they feel confident, but on the other, when you really sit down and talk with most of the engineers who've studied the problem here, they all say the same thing, which is, the dam is great.
It was really well built, but it's in the wrong place because of the geology underneath the dam. And it's always going to be in the wrong place. And I think when you take that fact and you put it in a place like Iraq where the politics are simply not stable enough to have any kind of predictability, you realize why we're in the problem that we're in.
CORNISH: Dexter Filkins is a staff writer for The New Yorker. Thank you for speaking with us.
FILKINS: Thank you so much.
Copyright © 2017 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record. | {
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Ok the story behind all this drama is that my friend who is huge african american male made fun of this asian guy who was walking to his car after school. My friend was telling the asian guy that he has a small dick and he is hated among our school.
The asian guy was like "small dick huh? come here ill show you how big of a dick you really are."
so my friend goes up to him and pushes him around like a little shrimp (like for real cause the asian guy was about 5'7 and my friend was about 6'3).
The two got into a fist fight and the asian guy was going crazy (i guess he knew martial arts) anyways he took my friend out and choked him out and punched him in the face a few times.
After my friend fainted. the asian guy looked up at me and told me that he'll come back for me monday after school.
WHAT SHOULD I DO!
i mean im strong and i play football but he knows stuff that i dont, so what should i do!!
im scared to be beaten up and humilated in front of my friends.
PLEASE HELP! | {
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By Sara Santiago
In the past two years, we’ve seen rapid changes in the forestry sector that we could not have predicted would be realized by 2014. As a starting point, we witnessed the chairman of Indonesia-based Asia Pulp and Paper (APP), the world’s second largest pulp and paper producer, announce a groundbreaking Forest Conservation Policy on Feb. 5, 2013, committing to an immediate moratorium on rainforest clearing for its pulp and paper products. This announcement, met with considerable and warranted skepticism, actually set the stage for a new reality for Southeast Asian rainforests. Since February 2013, APP, along with NGOs, brands, and advisers, has strived to uphold that commitment.
Astoundingly, by the end of 2013, the world’s largest palm oil producer and trader, Wilmar, quietly took the zero-deforestation commitment to the next level, by ensuring 45 percent of the world’s palm oil would be produced with zero-deforestation, zero-peatland and zero-social conflict. Unilever took the lead in supporting this policy. By the eve of 2014, commitments from two foremost, global suppliers redefined the mainstream, altering the way brands regard forests.
What has followed the major policy shifts by these two giants is a domino effect, with multiple brands following suit in the first months of 2014. It appeared as though a new U.S.-based brand fell into line on a weekly basis, following the model of their suppliers. GAR, a sister company to APP, suddenly re-entered the scene, by extending its existing Forest Conservation Policy to cover its suppliers, thus with Wilmar, over 50 percent of the world’s palm oil is bound by zero-deforestation commitments. Similarly, brands like Colgate-Palmolive, Mars and Ferrero announced their own zero-deforestation commitments. And most recently, Procter and Gamble and palm oil trader Cargill committed to zero deforestation and tracing palm oil in their supply chains.
These commitments were made, in large part, due to years of ambitious, strategic, and often relentless push and pull of NGOs like Greenpeace, Rainforest Action Network and the World Wildlife Fund, and various local stakeholders and advisors. These savvy campaigners not only envisioned, but also pursued and are realizing a more environmentally and socially just forestry landscape. They have been the key stakeholders that got the ball rolling, outlined new standards, and are ultimately monitoring and holding companies accountable to these commitments. Without their passion, deep connections to forests, and bold action, we would not be seeing this global movement towards ‘zero deforestation’ among suppliers and their brand customers.
New norm of zero-deforestation
1. Exceeding international standards
2. Stakeholder engagement: Odd bedfellows
3. Technology as a tool
4. Replication
The road ahead
The new norm of zero-deforestation implies we are entering a new phase, transitioning into a modern approach to global forest management and conservation to match the latest commitments. So, what does this 21st century model look like?The most trailblazing of commitments, like APP’s and Wilmar’s, exceed industry standards, going above and beyond international certification standards, like SFI, or RSPO. This in turns raises the bar across industries and forces other suppliers to adhere to these standards, as their customers demand sustainable products. In turn, NGO and brand dissatisfaction with these international bodies has prompted calls for reform , especially of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil Inclusive, direct engagement of all stakeholders – companies, NGOs, funders, advisers – has defined these policies and remains absolutely critical to their long-term success. For example, APP has closely and consistently engaged with The Forest Trust and Greenpeace to uphold their FCP, resulting in a mix of odd-bedfellows who partake in frank dialogue and shape one another in fascinating ways. As a result, it’s safe to say we will see new norms in activist campaign methodology, proactivity versus reactivity from brands, and altered funding patterns for campaigns as well as conservation projects.Technology has also emerged not as a solution to deforestation but as a tool to monitor both progress and setbacks, to ensure accountability and transparency. The Forest Trust’s dashboard technology , for instance, provides ongoing monitoring of APP’s concessions – from forest data to local grievances. 21century technology has aided in the push beyond simple conservation goals toward consulting and engaging with local communities.APP and then Wilmar’s commitments set a bold precedent for industry, with single leaders steering their industries in a new direction and, ultimately, toward a new norm. But why stop at pulp and paper and palm oil, at paper towels and snack foods? In the words of the Climate and Land Use Alliance’s Director of Programs Daniel Zarin: “Momentum is a precious thing.” And with this momentum in pulp and paper and palm oil, there is now a space for replication of the commitment to zero-deforestation across all commodities that impact forests – beef, soya, coffee, and cacao, to name a few.Simply put, all eyes are on the forests. It is yet to be determined through third party validation to what degree these ambitious brand commitments will protect rainforests and how successfully they will be upheld over time. The stakes are higher than ever for genuine follow-through. As Greenpeace professes: “We have no permanent friends or permanent enemies.” NGOs like Greenpeace are closely monitoring and evaluating the process, and if companies default on their promises, campaigns will commence harder than before, as campaigns continue to ramp up against other pulp and paper and palm oil producers who have not made such commitments.
The risks are great and do not simply include those to brand reputation, but to the very real, disastrous threats posed to forests, communities, habitats, and climate, which are at the heart of zero tolerance for deforestation. Consequently, this is an exciting time as we see a diverse set of stakeholders now ultimately working toward the shared goal of zero-deforestation. We are on the cusp of extraordinary change, so let’s keep going.
----
Sara Santiago is a stakeholder engagement analyst at Future 500, a global nonprofit specializing in stakeholder engagement and building bridges between parties at odds – often corporations and NGOs, the political right and left, and others – to advance systemic solutions to environmental problems. Jo
Join Sara on May 22nd at Stories + Beer to learn more about these important developments in forest conservation, Future 500’s role in facilitating stakeholder engagement, and what it means going forward.
Photo by Phil Covington | {
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Blackpool Pleasure Beach 16th June 2018
In January of this year, management at Blackpool Pleasure Beach abruptly demolished the classic Wild Mouse. The ride was easily the best of the four wooden mice in operation worldwide, and the only one in the northern hemisphere, and unsurprisingly there was a significant outcry both from members of the enthusiast community and from the wider public. The loss was made all the worse by the fact that it came without any advance warning, meaning that those after a final spin or two on a childhood favourite were left bereft.
Part of me wanted to cut the park out of my trip plans this year despite the installation of a new coaster, as I didn't want to give my hard-earned money to a business treating its heritage (and long-term customers) with such callous disregard. At the same time however I had to acknowledge the fact that there were still four wood coasters in the park that Megan had yet to experience, and events had shown that it was entirely possible for any of them to meet the wrecking ball at any time. In the end my compromise with myself was to exchange Tesco Clubcard tokens for admission, reducing my financial outlay to an absolute minimum. The only unavoidable cost for the visit was parking. I decided it was worth investing £15 for a space in the premium lot, and lady luck granted me a spot less than fifty metres from the main entrance.
The weather today was definitely not ideal. Light rain in the early hours became progressively heavier over the course of the morning and early afternoon, only burning off for the last hour of our visit. On the positive side, the conditions ensured short queues; we managed twenty-two rides over the course of the eight hour operating day, and probably would have gotten through thirty if we hadn't stopped for a leisurely lunch. All but one of the attractions in the area remained operational throughout; the only miss was the spinning coaster at nearby South Pier that was out of service due to high winds.
When I first visited Blackpool Pleasure Beach way back in 2002 there was no charge for admission and there were several entrance routes. Sadly that changed for the 2009 season; nowadays all access is via a consolidated airport-style security checkpoint at the north end of the park. The metal detectors appear to be primarily for security theatre; Megan set hers off but was allowed through without further checking because "it was probably your glasses". I take the view that mandatory checkpoints in public places amount to letting the terrorists win; I wonder just how many times I've had to take out my mobile phone and camera over the last few years.
As ever we decided to begin our visit with the new coaster. A moderate line had formed in front of the entrance to Icon (#2448), and we joined it just a few metres away from the Laughing Man, a profoundly annoying animatronic sideshow dating from 1935. This abomination was coin operated at one point in its life, but now runs continuously, presumably as a way of dispersing guests that might otherwise congregate in the area. The twenty minutes we spent standing right next to recorded uproarious laughter were not the highlight of our day; I'd urge anyone retracing our steps to bring earplugs in the interests of their own mental wellbeing.
The park has been aggressively promoting their new attraction as the first double-launch coaster in the United Kingdom, apparently oblivious to the fact that there has been a coaster that launches twice at Blackpool Pleasure Beach since 1979. Some weeks ago I read a debate on this very topic on Twitter, and was amused to discover that the official park web site acknowledges what marketing people appear to have forgotten (emphasis mine):
"Get ready for the rush of the Revolution. With its wicked acceleration the train is launched out of the station and speeds straight for the gigantic loop. Just when you think it’s over you are launched backwards to relive the incredible g-force all over again!"
There's no doubt that I'm getting grumpier as I get older, but I have to say that prevarication in marketing annoys me, not least because it tends to get parroted around (or worse yet embellished) by the chattering classes. Three years ago the media here in Ireland had a field day over the world's first inverted wood coaster (if only!), and just last month there were a slew of stories circulating that labelled Steel Vengeance as the world's tallest coaster, the word "hybrid" having conveniently disappeared. The obvious conclusion is that news media cannot be bothered to report accurately, and thus are complicit in the dumbing down of our society. But I digress.
The loading station has been placed parallel to the Grand Prix antique cars in a space formerly occupied by a midway. The design was clearly constrained by available space; there is enough room for four people to stand at each air gate, but the queue approaches from the back and it isn't possible for oncoming guests to see when there are empty spaces towards the front. Today the atmospheric music had to be paused every now and then so that the operators could ask people to move forward. I preferred this approach to the scourge of assigned seating, though I can't help but wonder if there might be a better solution; perhaps allowing a train load of people into the station at a time (first come/first served) might avoid congestion while keeping capacity high? In theory that approach might also allow for dedicated front and back queues too.
The train rolls out of the station onto a launch track and stops for a number of seconds. The acceleration when it comes is modest, being very much in family coaster territory, though it is enough to push the five car train over a twenty-five metre high top hat with some speed to spare. The track then passes under the lift hill of the Big One and enters a series of banked turns that weave their way around (and through) Big Dipper and Steeplechase. A zero gravity roll and mist-filled tunnel lead to a somewhat better launch, a hangtime-filled inversion, and a whole series of dramatic side-to-side turns. The last few are particularly forceful, generating sensations that are not altogether unlike those produced by a Zamperla Disko.
Icon isn't a bad ride by any means, though those after an extreme thrill will be disappointed. The experience felt a little too homogenous for my liking, relying too much on side-to-side turns; a little more variety in the layout would have improved things immeasurably. The ride remains a worthy addition to the park (and I'm not using that phrase pejoratively) but the four laps I completed today were ample; I won't be making a special effort to return to it in the near future. The benchmark ride for Mack launched coasters remains Helix, which is in a league of its own, and I still think Nemesis is the best coaster in the UK.
Our next stop was at Steeplechase, an unusual coaster with three parallel tracks traversed by horse-shaped vehicles. The ride has been the only one of its type for over two decades following the closure of an American equivalent at the end of 1996, and while that may soon change the experience is, for the moment at least, unique. The red track was out of service today, a mild embuggerance for Megan, but the other two were running pretty much as I remembered them from my last rides way back in 2002; enjoyable if somewhat jarring due to limited cornering ability. The green track was very noticeably faster than the yellow today; the reader is invited (and actively encouraged) to come up with their own aphorism involving horses and lubricants.
The tallest coaster in the park for more than two decades was stripped of its Pepsi Max prefix at the start of the 2012 season, though the Big One still features two oversized drink cans at the base of its lift hill. As ever the highlight of the layout is the first drop, which is superb; from then on the track follows a routing that does absolutely nothing at high speed, leading Megan to complain that she'd forgotten to bring a book. Most of the design feels like an oversized Jet Coaster from seventies Japan, and though we did two laps it was more for the view than for the ride experience. (As an aside, arriving trains are still greeted by a recording talking about vertical reality; this hasn't aged well.)
Our next stop was at Revolution, an increasingly rare example of the Launched Loop from Arrow Dynamics. Eight versions were produced in the late seventies and early eighties. The first three premiered in 1977 at Boardwalk and Baseball, Kings Island, and Six Flags New England. The next year two interlocking versions were set up at Six Flags Great Adventure, where they operated in tandem for eight years. One of those tracks lives on as Diamond Back, while the other was scrapped following a five year stint at Six Flags America. The final two opened in 1980; a version at Tokyo Dome City that lasted just five seasons, and another at Magic Springs that was sold on after ten, eventually rematerialising as Sidewinder.
The machine at Blackpool was the sixth off the production line, premiering in 1979 in a striking red and white colour scheme. Nowadays it wears a much more subtle silver hue, though many other aspects of the experience are as they would have been thirty-eight years ago, not least a recording that says that "you are about to experience the most exciting and thrilling ride of your life" and a second repeated ad nauseam reminding guests to stay behind the yellow line. The ride experience today was little short of disastrous; the train began to shudder badly during the initial acceleration, and a series of slams in the loop were transferred directly to my shoulders and upper body by the unforgiving restraint design. We decided to splurge on our on-ride photo for its sheer hilarity.
With the Arrow coasters (fortunately) out of the way we headed for Avalanche. I've always had a soft spot for bobsled coasters of all kinds, and though the Blackpool model is the shortest of the six Mack models it remains a lively and forceful ride that I'd argue to be one of the best in the park. The hardware limits the layout to a mix of helices, but that isn't a problem with a design that builds speed all the way from the top of the lift to the brake run. It's a huge shame that the last new bobsled opened over fifteen years ago; if any park owners are reading this then I'd strongly encourage you to look at acquiring the version removed from Kobe Portopialand which was last reported to be in storage in Italy.
With that complete we headed into the area of the park that I will probably always think of as Beaver Creek despite the bright Nickelodeon theming that it has worn since 2011. Lucky timing meant that we had no wait at all for Blue Flyer, a short but enjoyable family wood coaster originally known as Zipper Dipper. The ride has an out and back layout with a grand total of three drops, but they are negotiated with ease by an elaborately upholstered train with comfortable buzz bar restraints. (In the mid-nineties engineers from the park were hired to build a clone of the ride in India; that installation continues to thrill at EsselWorld today.)
Our next stop was Dora's World Voyage, a slow-moving boat ride that can be thought of as a very basic outdoor equivalent of Disney's It's a small world. Our tour brought us past static cartoon scenery from France, Russia, China, and Tanzania to the accompaniment of a repetitive song teaching us how to say hello in the local languages. Megan liked this rather more than I did; personally I felt it could have been improved with a special soundtrack for adult only groups, perhaps adapted from the Book of Mormon. Viacom might not approve of that kind of alteration, but it might still be worth it.
We took advantage of a break in the weather to appreciate Nickelodeon Streak, an eighty-five year old classic that ran for over seventy years with no restraints whatsoever. Changing health and safety regulations have resulted in the addition of lap bars, though I can report that they have no real impact on the ride experience which remains lively and enjoyable, if not one likely to rearrange top ten lists. The layout for the most part follows the eastern boundary of the park, coming within seventy metres of the nearest house; one presumes that the residents there have good sound insulation on their windows. I wasn't overly fond of the orange-coloured track and luminous green train, which make for a rather tacky combination, but one probably shouldn't expect anything else at a place like Blackpool.
Our next stop was at Wallace & Gromit's Thrill-O-Matic, a dark ride added to the park for the 2013 season in place of the former Gold Mine. Two car trains have been designed to look like Wallace's slippers, and these negotiate a variety of scenes from five of the seven movies: A Grand Day Out, The Wrong Trousers, A Close Shave, The Curse of the Were-Rabbit and A Matter of Loaf and Death. An intimate knowledge of the Aardman comic duo is not a prerequisite to enjoy what is a good family-friendly attraction, though it certainly helps explain certain scenes. We decided to pass on the cheese-flavoured rock on sale in the gift shop.
The same area of the park also features the River Caves, a superb dark ride dating from 1905 that I'd somehow never gotten around to experiencing for myself. Guests board small boats that float through an elaborate set of scenes comprising a Chinese emperor, dinosaurs, the depths of the ocean, Inca civilisation, and finally three present day tourist destinations: the Blue Grotto of Capri, the Valley of the Kings in Egypt, and the temples of Angkor Wat in Cambodia. The scenery is mostly static, but the quality and scale of it is impressive, especially when you consider how old it is.
That being said, there are two slightly strange features of the ride as it stands today that detract from the overall experience. The first is a sign at the entrance saying "Tunnel of Love", which I've since learned is a relic from when the ride made a brief appearance in an episode of Coronation Street. The second is a pointless three foot high lift and outdoor splashdown that serves no obvious purpose given that it terminates at the ride boarding platform. A larger descent into caves would make sense; a drop of this scale does not.
The rain was falling quite heavily when we boarded Big Dipper, and as a result we didn't really get to appreciate the ride properly as we had to keep our eyes shut. The one interesting feature for me was the presence of four-bench trains, something I don't recall seeing anywhere else; I was expecting these to have problems cresting hills, but they managed well enough. We were hoping to ride a second time towards the end of the day, but found that it had closed thirty minutes before the sign at the entrance suggested that it would.
After a quick food stop we decided it was time to endure Infusion, the Vekoma SLC that formerly operated at Southport Pleasureland. Perhaps we were lucky, but I can report that the ride quality was nowhere near as bad as expected, to the point that I could have gone back for a second lap. The installation certainly looks the part; I particularly liked an artificial waterfall effect set underneath one of the drops. At the exit we found a CoasterDynamix model of the layout with four-across trains, which set me wondering what the venerable five inversion layout might be like if manufactured by B&M (or, indeed, using Vekoma's latest fabrication technologies). Perhaps we'll find out some day.
The most uncomfortable coaster in the park by a significant margin was the left hand lift on Grand National. There were powerful moments of airtime at each apex, but these were quickly forgotten as the train crashed into each drop with a brutality that made me question whether the wooden track had been reinforced with concrete. Our ride on the right hand track was somewhat better, though that might have been because we made a point of not ending up in a wheel seat, and neither of us felt like risking a third lap to confirm our suspicions. A recording in the station parroted the words "this is a wonderful ride" every few minutes, perhaps in a vain hope that people might actually believe a statement if it was repeated often enough.
Our next hit was at the Ghost Train. In recent years there has been some debate in the enthusiast community about whether two dark rides built in the sixties by the Pretzel Corporation should be classified as roller coasters. Proponents of the theory point to the fact that Devil's Den and Haunted House have a lift hill and rely on gravity and momentum to complete the journey, and it is certainly true that this is the usual rule. Others ask where the line should be drawn, and the installation at Blackpool is a data point for this side of the argument, as it features a gravity driven drop and climb that is bigger than many coasters. The structure for this element isn't supported from below, and it visibly flexes every time a car passes over it. My take is that everyone can count what they like; for me a dark ride is still a dark ride. I enjoyed this one a lot, particularly the scene where we passed a number of skeletons riding bicycles.
Our final stop was at the Alice Ride, described as an enchanting trip through the looking glass into Alice's Wonderland. The layout featured two brief outdoor sections with not very much to see, though the interior was much better, featuring brightly coloured mushrooms, chess pieces, playing cards, Humpty Dumpty, scenes from the Mad Hatter's tea party, and a whole bunch of book pages. The only slight oddity was the soundtrack, a thirty second loop taken from the seventies version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory; one would have thought that a less recognisable tune would have been a better choice. | {
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we can look after your house while you are on holiday or away on a business trip. An increasing number of people find it comforting to know that their property is being looked after while they're away. There are plenty of companies offering house sitting services but to legally provide a paid security service they should be SIA licence holders, many are not, we are 100 percent compliant and fully insured. We can also report back to you as often as you like using telephone calls, emails or online video conferencing. For larger properties and estates we can put mobile accommodation in place as required as a base.
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The above services can either be 24/7 cover or for agreed periods. | {
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Liberals fell for a parody excerpt of Michael Wolff’s “Fire and Fury” book that claimed Trump was angry he couldn’t find “The Gorilla Channel” on the White House cable package.
Pixelated Boat, a comedy Twitter account with over 100k followers, wrote a hilarious parody of Wolff’s book on Friday. The fake passage said Trump thought the TV in his bedroom was broken because it didn’t have “the gorilla channel,” so aides strung together a number of gorilla documentaries and broadcast it as a fake cable channel for the president.
Wow, this extract from Wolff’s book is a shocking insight into Trump’s mind: pic.twitter.com/1ZecclggSa — the gorilla channel thing is a joke (@pixelatedboat) January 5, 2018
Despite the passage being obviously fake — especially when it claims that Trump watches “the gorilla channel” for up to 17 hours a day — a decent number of verified liberals fell for the joke.
Scott Dworkin, a Democratic strategist, tweeted, “Trump was mad cuz his tv wasn’t getting ‘the gorilla channel ‘– doesn’t exist. So staff made videos of gorillas for him.”
Dworkin later deleted the tweet, apparently realizing it wasn’t a real Wolff passage.
Samantha Maiden, a Sky News journalist, also tweeted the passage as if it were real, even creating a Trump-gorilla meme to go along with it. Followers informed her that it was just a joke, and she claimed she didn’t realize at first because she’s on vacation.
Podcaster Toure proudly stated that he didn’t believe the “Gorilla channel story” from Wolff’s book. In a follow-up tweet, he thanked his followers for telling him it was a parody.
“I’m… troubled by things like the ‘gorilla channel’ tale which rings false to me,” actor Don Cheadle similarly wrote. “Like someone told wolff the story just to see if he’d print it.”
Of course, Cheadle didn’t realize that Wolff never printed anything about the gorilla channel.
King’s College London Professor Christine Cheng admitted she thought the gorilla channel was real because “Trump is beyond parody.”
Beyond parody herself is Litsa Dremousis, an author whose work sometimes appears in New York Magazine and The Washington Post. Dremousis thought that the gorilla channel story was good justification for impeachment.
“It’s not that I think the gorilla portion of Michael Wolf’s book will keep me up tonight; I think it might keep me up *forever* #Impeach,” she wrote.
Pixelated Boat eventually changed his Twitter name to “the gorilla channel thing is a joke” to try and warn people who were falling for the joke.
Follow Amber on Twitter | {
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Man does not live on bread alone. But on Ash Wednesday and the Fridays of Lent, he'd better not add meat to the menu.
To help Catholics observe Lenten abstinence rules, any fast-food restaurant worth its salt -- and sodium is in abundance at those places -- offers a fish sandwich on its menu, and starts airing TV commercials for them.
So what is the fish sandwich landscape like? I decided to find out.
I tried to keep the rules simple. The sandwich had to come from a fast-foodery with a national profile, but within a reasonable driving distance of Washington; sorry, White Castle. And I had to be able to stand up to order it and sit down -- even if it's in my car -- to eat it. Further, no tuna subs and the like; the fish has to be cooked. Also, no fries or other menu items. I saw the documentary "Supersize Me," and don't want that to happen to me. The only accompaniment was a bottle of water to wash it down.
Some may consider this odyssey as an advance Lenten penance.
Here's what I found. Sandwiches are listed in order of preference. Your results may vary. Nutrition information from www.fastfoodnutrition.org.
Popeyes Cajun Fish Sandwich, $3.99
Who knew that the first sandwich I tested would be the best? But it's also the most, er, meaty, with three filets plus the nub of a fourth on something resembling a hoagie roll. It's substantial, that's for sure, and fairly tasty, too. Adorned only with lettuce and a not-that-spicy form of mayo. (460 calories, 29 grams fat, 65 milligrams cholesterol, 27 grams carbohydrate, 21 grams protein.)
Popeyes Shrimp Po' Boy, $4.99
I may have been spoiled by its Cajun Fish sandwich, but this wasn't quite as terrific. It's still heads and fins above the rest, though. Too many popcorn shrimp to count, unless you let all of them fall outside the faux-hoagie roll. The roll, lettuce and sauce are the same as with the Cajun Fish. While flavorful, there's not as much spice as in the Cajun Fish offering, and it costs more. (680 calories, 41 grams fat, 65 milligrams cholesterol, 61 grams carbohydrate, 16 grams protein.)
Long John Silver's Fish Taco, $1.99
During the last decade or so that my mother lived in the house where I grew up, there was a Long John Silver's across the street. Many a time would I be dispatched to fetch a convenient meal. But that was before the age of fish tacos. Long John Silver's doesn't stray much from its formula for this menu item. There's a deep-fried fish filet surrounded by a soft flour taco. The only thing that falls out is some of the finely chopped coleslaw that serves as the glue. It's the lightest of the fish sandwiches tested, and the lightest on the wallet, too, and that's a plus in my book. (410 calories, 21 fat grams, 35 milligrams cholesterol, 40 grams carbohydrate, 13 grams protein.)
Long John Silver's Crispy Fish Sandwich, $4.39
I'm always gratified to see a fish sandwich that looked like fish. It's a bigger sandwich, with a bigger fish filet, than the Long John Silver's fish taco, and a much breadier, split-top roll to confine it. Four pickle slices are what gives it added zest; the mayo, or white sauce, inside was sparse. I was offered a packet of tartar sauce but I declined. I figure it's better to judge these entries as made in the kitchen. But for those who judge it needs extra moisture, there's also malt vinegar and hot sauce on a side counter, plus pumps for ketchup, mayo and barbecue sauce. (400 calories, 16 grams fat, 30 milligrams cholesterol, 40 grams carbohydrates, 14 grams protein.)
Arby's King Hawaiian Deluxe Fish Sandwich, $4.99
A sandwich defined by the bread that surrounds it? OK, I'll bite. (Sorry, couldn't resist.) In truth, the untoasted bread indeed has a distinct aroma and taste. But what really sells this sandwich is its heft. It tastes good from the first bite to the last. There's a lot of dressing, more than anyone else's save McDonald's, plus a tomato slice and shredded lettuce. File under: Yummy. (690 calories, 34 grams fat, 105 milligrams cholesterol, 74 grams carbohydrate, 25 grams protein.)
Popeyes Catfish Po'boy, $4.99
There wasn't much, if any, change in size over the dollar-cheaper Cajun Fish sandwich. There were two breaded catfish filets, but this is a definite step behind Popeyes other two offerings. I accepted the counter clerk's offer to have some tartar sauce put on the sandwich rather than giving it to me separately. Tasty, yes, but still dry. And the first one to admit it contains trans-fat -- 2 grams' worth. (800 calories, 51 grams fat, 75 milligrams cholesterol, 59 grams carbohydrates, 30 grams protein.)
Arby's Crispy Fish Sandwich, $3.99
Like its compatriot sandwich, the Arby's Cajun Fish Sandwich, it's part of a mix-and-match limited-time two-for-$5 offer. "We have the meats," proclaims Arby's motto. Well, they've got the fish, too, which I wouldn't have known unless I paid attention to the TV ad. In the ad, the fish looks longer than the bun. In reality, it's true -- but the fish isn't as deep as the bun, either. The crispy fish version wins by a fair margin. Its crispiness is genuine, and it's feels good in your mouth, and goes down satisfyingly. (570 calories, 25 grams fat, 45 milligrams cholesterol, 65 grams carbohydrate, 20 grams protein.)
Arby's Cajun Fish Sandwich, $3.99
The other fish-based sandwich in the Arby's two-for-$5 sale. It looks quite similar to the Crispy Fish. Both are pollock, "wild-caught," Arby's says. It's a shade darker than its crispy brother, not nearly as crispy, and the "Cajun" seems to come in the sauce spread over the bun. It's not strong at the start, but it picks up some heat the more you eat. Both feature a lot a shredded lettuce, and a lot more would fall out if the sauce wasn't pasted onto it. (590 calories, 29 grams fat, 45 milligrams cholesterol, 63 grams carbohydrate, 20 grams protein.)
McDonald's Double Filet-O-Fish, $5.39
If one fish filet is good, shouldn't two be better? Here, the answer is yes. And for just a buck more than the original Filet-O-Fish. There is plenty of tartar sauce on this sandwich -- so much so that it got on the outside of both buns. But it's a satisfying sink-your-teeth-into taste. It all depends on whether you want to practice thrift by getting twice as much fish for far less than twice the cost, or practice economy and self-abnegation by sticking with the original. (540 calories, 26 grams fat, 80 milligrams cholesterol, 48 grams carbohydrate, 28 grams protein.)
Checkers/Rally Deep Sea Double, $4.99
The insides were fine: two fish filets with a slice of cheese melted between them, plus the obligatory lettuce and sauce. I took them up on their offer of onions, but turned down the tomato. But the bun was big and thin and really not up to the task of keeping it all together. I appreciate the heft, but it needs a better delivery system. (639 calories, 31 grams fat, 95 milligrams cholesterol, 63 grams carbohydrates, 25 grams protein.)
McDonald's Filet-O-Fish, $4.39
Once considered the gold standard, the original Filet-O-Fish is still better than its square-patty brethren elsewhere. But it's been surpassed by many other fast-food joints' entries, as evidenced here. If a second fish patty still nets McDonald's a profit at just one dollar more, then why are we paying $3.39 for a bun, a slice of American cheese and a gob of tartar sauce? (379 calories, 20 grams fat, 43 milligrams cholesterol, 35 grams carbohydrate, 15 grams protein.)
Wendy's North Pacific Cod Sandwich, $4.39
Cod was the fish of choice for the Booster Club's weekly Lenten fish fries at my boyhood parish. I don't know if it came from the North Pacific; all I know is that it came in a box, frozen. Wendy's version, a seasonal item in my neck of the woods, isn't all I thought it would be. The cod has flavor, but not a lot. There's one big leaf of iceberg lettuce instead of shredded lettuce, and mayo (or a mayolike substance) on the inside of one bun. The Coalition of Immokalee Workers, which has pushed a Wendy's boycott since 2016 for not signing a pledge that promotes tomato pickers, may be pleased to know there's no tomato in this sandwich. (440 calories, 21 grams fat, 40 milligrams cholesterol, 46 grams carbohydrate, 17 grams protein.)
Burger King Big Fish Sandwich, $5.19
Gone is the Whaler, the alliterative seafood companion to the Whopper -- maybe because BK didn't want anyone to think they were eating a whale. But if you ate this a day after eating the Popeyes fish sandwich like I did, you'd blubber too. About the only thing this does well is put one square slab of fish between two round buns. A little smear of mayo or tartar sauce on both sides to keep the lettuce from falling off. Unremarkable, and disappointing given the price. (510 calories, 28 grams fat, 30 milligrams cholesterol, 51 grams carbohydrate, 18 grams protein.)
Anyone looking for the Bojangle's "BojAngler" fish sandwich will have to wait until April, when it returns to the menu.
I have to give an honorable mention to the grilled cheese sandwich from Johnny Rockets. While there's no fish in it -- it evokes memories of a simpler time -- even it you have to pay $5.59 plus tax for the privilege. It's also a reminder that, while fast-food places have doubled down on their burger offerings, they do offer other, plausibly more healthful, items that you can buy at Lent, or any other time of the year. (710 calories, 41 grams fat, 110 milligrams cholesterol, 50 grams carbohydrate, 36 grams protein.)
Anyone thinking these reviews are tongue-in-cheek, well, they're right. How else are you going to chew and swallow? | {
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Some people (raises hand) are supporters of Bernie Sanders. But many, many more people are NOT supporters of Bernie Sanders. This 2020 GEN magazine haters’ guide, the second in an already famed and illustrious series, is for those in the latter group.
Your candidate
The U.S. Senate equivalent of the old guy at the gym who works out for 10 minutes on an exercise bike while wearing Lee Jeans and a dress shirt.
His résumé
2016 Democratic primary runner-up. He’s a socialist! But he’s also a Democrat! But also, he was always an independent! He’s a floor cleaner AND a dessert topping! You know how some closet Republicans love to say they’re independent while brandishing a big ol’ name tag that says Avowed Libertarian on it? Bernie Sanders is the liberal equivalent of that, which is somehow more irritating to deal with. Throughout his tenure, Bernie has served as the designated empty can that rattles the most, remaining steadfast in his opposition to unfettered capitalism and for-profit wars: a righteous man who also froze himself out of the political process so that he could be conveniently free to bitch about that process from the inside. As a legislator, Sanders was content to Bernie up minor provisions of bills while rarely, if ever, pushing through major legislative initiatives of his own.
If you’ve already drank the Kool-Aid, you can see all this through the prism of Bernie being the “eternal outsider,” sticking to his principles until, with Donald Trump as president, the rest of his party finally came around to seeing things his way. If you’re just a touch more skeptical about Berniemania, you can see this as an old and intractable kook ignorantly trying to seize control of a moment that never really belonged to him. Bad things happen when you let white dudes—especially ones who have been able to stroll along the corridors of power for literal decades—indulge in the delusion that they’re outsiders. That’s not even a coy Trump allusion I’m making. That’s always been true.
Also, Bernie defended Iran during the hostage crisis of 1979–81. That was 41 years ago, so my man doesn’t get to chalk up that stance to being a young and vigorous 106 years old at the time it happened.
Why he sucks
Because of his supporters. This is the part where I disclose that I’m voting for Bernie in the primary. I was all in for Elizabeth Warren for the bulk of 2019, switching over to Bernie when I found Warren’s health care plan to be deliberately watered-down in a cave to the more rightward flank of her own party. I took that proposal as a shitty cop-out on her end. Warren, of course, was not copping out. She was, as is she wont to do, laying out a plan for exactly how she would achieve Medicare for All. I didn’t want to hear any of that shit. I wanted better quality raw meat: a politician telling me they will give me M4A and give it to me right now. This is the kind of easy pandering that all politicians indulge in and is relatively easy to detect… unless, of course, it’s precisely the kind of bullshit you want to hear. I didn’t want to hear the truth from Warren, so I went over to Bernie.
And lemme tell you something, it’s become a spiritual chore to not become infected with Bernie Bro-ism after the fact. I can feel it creeping in, especially as we’re nearing the primaries and Bernie is suddenly in the crosshairs of a lot of people, Warren included. When Warren accused Bernie of saying a woman couldn’t win the presidency, I immediately wrote it off as a lie: a cheap political stunt from a candidate who knew her momentum was waning. And I would have expressed those sentiments except that the Bernie Hive was already wayyyy ahead of me in playing up their victimhood.
That’s but one piece of hay in a bale the size of fucking Jupiter. I could absolutely be one of those Bernie Bros or Bro-ettes. I could say that CNN is fake news and that Warren — a woman I would shit hot knives to see elected president — is desperately trying to re-integrate herself into the party machinery, which is out to get Bernie any way it can. But Bernie already has a spiritual bot farm in place to get all that across, whether you asked them for it or not (you didn’t). They’re fucking poison. They’re deft trolls constantly on the prowl for perceived slights, and anyone who’s been online at any time over the past four years can and should recognize this unfolding in real time. In fact, this particular strain of Softboy aggression has been living comfortably in the rec room of the progressive movement since 2016:
Even though Bernie eventually did endorse Hillary Clinton that year, you can go right ahead and draw a line from him to any number of disaffected liberals who decided to vote for fucking Jill Stein or some other unlicensed gemologist in that election, potentially creating a miniature Nader effect that Bernie has never bothered to take responsibility for. This is because Bernie is an asshole. He’ll tell you so himself!
Beware of No Bullshit guys. You know the type. No Bullshit guys love to tell you how unwilling they are to tolerate bullshit. Other people? They love bullshit. Why, they’d work free as paralegals all year long, they love bullshit so much! But not this guy. This guy isn’t here to shake your hand or ask you about your day or wish you a happy birthday. He’s not into any of that. He’s a No Bullshit Outsider, baby. Because he sucks. If Bernie was really as anti-bullshit as he claims to be, he would exert some kind of control over his followers online and tell them to 1) leave people alone; and 2) stop being so irritating that they’re actively repelling potential newcomers to the flock.
Bernie’s campaign isn’t a direct parallel to Trump’s 2016 campaign. But that doesn’t mean it’s free of bad shit, and that doesn’t mean Bernie should get a pass for what a pasty legion of self-appointed surrogates do on his behalf.
He hasn’t, and he doesn’t get to use his age as an excuse for this neglect. Bernie may not know much about the internet, but his operatives sure as shit do. He’s even got the endorsement of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in his back pocket, and no Democrat is better at being online than AOC. Has he used any of those resources to keep his base in check? Fuck no, he hasn’t. Like any other member of the Bernie Hive, I’m as sick of hearing from Hillary Clinton as I’ll ever be. But when she trashed Bernie to the Hollywood Reporter this week, she pointed out a fairly obvious truth about what’s going on:
“It’s the culture around him. It’s his leadership team. It’s his prominent supporters. It’s his online Bernie Bros and their relentless attacks on lots of his competitors, particularly the women. And I really hope people are paying attention to that because it should be worrisome that he has permitted this culture — not only permitted, [he] seems to really be very much supporting it.”
Again, I can wave that off as Hillary being an eternally blind loyalist to her own racket. A more hapless Frank Sheeran. But that would just be me rooting around for excuses to ignore what is plainly evident. No, Bernie’s campaign isn’t a direct parallel to Trump’s 2016 campaign. But that doesn’t mean it’s free of bad shit, and that doesn’t mean Bernie should get a pass for what a pasty legion of self-appointed surrogates do on his behalf. All he has to do is get up at a rally and say, “Lemme stop everyone here for a second. This is not a movement way-uh we launch into vicious attacks online, which is what the millionaires and billionaires want us to do becoss they know the more-uh we fight, the more-uh time they have to raise beer prices.” But he hasn’t! Get it together, old man.
Also, he owns three houses. And he needed over 70 years to “evolve” on race views. And he twice voted to protect gun companies from liability if their products were used in violent crimes (this is why I voted for Hillary in the 2016 primary). And Joe Rogan endorsed him. With Bari Weiss on as his guest. And he’s holding a rally with Vampire Weekend next month. I’m not saying the cure is worse than the disease, but it’s certainly got no shortage of side effects. If I support Bernie long enough I’ll probably end up affecting his Frankenstein underbite. Fire bad!
Why he’ll suck as president
Bernie would be 79 years old on his inauguration day, beating Trump as the oldest inaugurated president in U.S. history. He’s really fucking old. And I know it was nice to see him quickly recover from a heart attack in October and get right back out on the trail, but that doesn’t mean Bernie is tough. It means he’s at the age where spontaneous heart failure can happen anytime, anywhere. He won’t tap Marianne Williamson as his running mate, but he sure as hell better tap someone who adheres to her health and skincare regimen.
And even if Bernie does not drop dead while in office, he’s still not gonna accomplish anything useful. Bernie is a pleasant figurehead for a movement that needs a lot more than that.
One unhateable thing
His whole “fuck you we’re going to win” campaign ethos? I like it.
He’s gonna win this thing. I just hope he gets his shit together while he does. | {
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“My feet, arms, and legs are so sore,” I tell my wife over dinner. She laughs and tells me I haven’t left home, gone to the gym, or done anything other than write and play VR games the past few days. “I know,” I tell her. “That’s the point.”
Playing roomscale VR games is exhilarating, immersive, and downright exhausting. Punching discs back and forth in games of Ripcoil, reaching the far corners of the room for hours on end to put the tracking sensors through their paces, ducking and crouching during shootouts in Dead & Buried, killing hundreds of zombies in Arizona Sunshine, and trying to set a new home run record in VR Sports Challenge — these are all things that feel real when you do them in VR.
After spending over a week putting the Oculus Rift with Touch through its paces, and re-testing many aspects of the HTC Vive itself, I’ve come away a more conditioned, sore, and seasoned gamer than I was previously. Obviously I’ve spent a lot of time in VR before this, but it’s usually much more sporadic and with lengthy breaks. This past weekend, I may have spent just as much time in VR as I did doing anything else.
For reference, here is our original Oculus Rift review, HTC Vive review, and Oculus Touch controllers review.
The HTC Vive originally released back in April of this year. From day one, it has enabled keyboard and mouse, gamepad, or motion controllers for input methods, as well as seated, standing, and roomscale tracking in your play space. The Oculus Rift, by comparison, released a few days earlier, but only permitted keyboard and mouse, gamepad or a simple remote input method, as well as seated or standing tracking. There were no motion controllers and no roomscale options at all. That’s all about to change.
What is Roomscale VR?
You might be wondering what exactly is roomscale VR? Essentially, roomscale tracking means that you’re able to move around an entire room freely, without the game, headset, sensors, or anything else losing track of your location. This means turning around and walking away from your computer, crawling on the ground, reaching up in the air, crouching behind something in the virtual world, and any other type of free-form interaction. This has been a feature of the HTC Vive since day one.
Conversely, with the Oculus Rift you could stand or sit in front of your single camera while it tracked your headset, but that’s it. If you leaned over too far, the camera would lose track of you. You couldn’t move laterally across the room or do anything other than remain stationary with slight head movement. It was still an immersive virtual reality experience, but was far from the fully-capable roomscale immersion that many people were yearning for.
How Does Roomscale VR Work?
The HTC Vive enables this through the use of its lighthouse base stations. They work by invisibly sweeping lasers across your entire room and tracking the headset and controllers by way of the little concave sensors you see spread across the surfaces of the devices. In order to use the Vive at all, you set up a base station up in each opposite corner of your room. This allows them to see and track the full area, in real-time, regardless of what you’re doing or which direction you’re facing.
Until now, the Oculus Rift wasn’t really capable of matching this feature. But with the flexibility afforded by multiple Rift sensors on the same setup, that’s starting to change. When you purchase the Oculus Touch controllers for about $200, they come with a second sensor. This expands the trackable space laterally, as you place them on opposite sides of your desk. Now you can reach out with your hands, and move around your room a bit without having any real issues. However, even then, it’s still a mostly 180-degree experience. Turn all the way around or go too far to either side and the sensors will lose track of parts of you eventually.
But if you get a third sensor and enable the Rift’s “experimental” roomscale tracking, then you can finally access true roomscale. A third sensor is available for approximately $80 before tax and shipping and it includes a 5 meter extension cable. You place this third sensor at the back of your playspace, which enables it to see you when turned around, and can access up to an 8×8 feet space. This is still much smaller than the ideal maximum of the HTC Vive.
This comparison — the complete HTC Vive experience vs. a Rift with three sensors and the Touch controllers — is the primary focus of this article. If you want to know what we think about the Touch controllers vs. the Vive controllers, then you can read that here. Spoiler: we like the Oculus Touch controllers better.
Roomscale Setup: Vive vs. Rift
When setting up your roomscale environment, the Rift and the Vive differ quite a bit. For the Vive, you plug your headset into the breakout box with clearly labeled ports, then plug that box into the back of your PC with a USB port, an HDMI cord, and then into a power outlet. That powers your headset. Make sure your controllers are charged up, then set those aside. Now you have to place your lighthouses, above head level, in opposite corners of the room. It can be a bit tricky depending on what’s in the room, but they can be easily wall-mounted, which is recommended for stability and accuracy. Just angle them downward toward the center of your room and you’re good to go. All they require is a single power outlet for each. For inevitable firmware updates, you’ll have to plug devices into your PC directly.
Now you go through the SteamVR setup process, including the room setup, which will allow you to set the floor orientation and outline the trackable environment by walking around the perimeter of your room. Once you’re done, everything should work well. The thick wire that goes from your headset to the breakout box is frustrating, but you get used to it eventually. To make sure you did it all correctly, I’d highly recommend reading the official documentation.
For the Oculus Rift with three sensors and the Touch controllers, we found setup to be a bit more complex. For starters, the Rift itself plugs into the PC in a very similar fashion — with a USB port and HDMI cable. Then you’ve also got to plug in both — or in the case of roomscale, all three — of your tracking sensors. Instead of using power outlets, they must each go into a USB port. This means a lot of cords and at least one USB extender for that pesky third sensor in the corner. It also means getting out a tape measure to make sure your playspace is setup correctly, which can be frustrating and lead to rearranging furniture. The default presentation of each Rift sensor is on a short stand with a platform at the bottom, rather than the lighthouse’s cube design, which is more adaptable for mounting.
Once everything is plugged in, the setup process that the Oculus SDK walks you through isn’t fully functional for a three sensor roomscale setup, which resulted in us skipping some steps because it wasn’t registering things correctly all the time. Luckily, it all worked fine even after skipping those. If you want to run Steam/Vive games with the Rift and Touch, then we recommend going through the Oculus SDK setup process first, then launching Steam VR and running its roomscale setup afterward. You can read the official documentation here about the experimental tracking.
In both cases, the setup process isn’t simple and has a lot of steps that could get messed up or take well over a half hour to an hour to get everything right. I hope you started downloading games and apps before trying to set either headset up. Ultimately though, the Vive setup process is easier, with less cords, and more flexibility.
Roomscale Size: Vive vs. Rift
Our Vive-powered mixed reality capture studio at the Upload Collective is a fairly large space of approximately 8 ft. x 13 ft. The minimum play space recommended on the product website is 6 ft. 6in. x 5 ft. with a maximum of 11 ft. 5 in. x 11 ft. 5 in., however we found expanding as far as 13 ft. in either direction was supported during testing. The only bottleneck in this was was really the range of the base stations and, to a lesser degree, the length of the cable.
With the Vive, since the headset cable connects to a breakout box that then connects to an outlet and your PC, the permitted length that your headset can extend is quite lenient. Whether we were rolling on the ground, walking the full length of the entire play space, or even standing on chairs to simulate extreme height, there were never any issues with tracking. The same goes for a smaller, minimum-sized roomscale setup for Vive.
The Oculus Rift roomscale size has a few more variables. When using two sensors, the Rift asks you to set them up anywhere from 3-7 ft. apart, on your desk, in front of your monitor or wherever you want your front-facing orientation to be. For most people, that will be on either end of their desk. But when you add a third sensor into the mix, it gets a bit more complex. Now Oculus recommends those first two sensors to be approximately 8 ft. apart, and the third should be 13 ft. away from the left sensor, in the diagonal corner of the room. This will permit an 8 x 8 ft. playspace, which makes the recommended maximum for Rift with Touch and three sensors just a couple of feet larger than the recommended minimum for the Vive.
However, we found that this space limitation is mostly artificial. By spreading that third sensor out farther and moving the two main sensors a bit further apart, we were able to get closer to 9 ft. or 10 ft. tracking in either direction. The limitation here being the cords themselves and the range of the sensors. The optimal tracking space occurs in the center of the play area, so just because you can expand the camera distance doesn’t necessarily mean the tracking will be as effective throughout the room. Keeping it to the recommended space will afford the best results.
The most frustrating aspect is, once again, the cord length. Since the Rift has to plug directly into the PC without a breakout box, wrapping around to the back of most towers to get to USB and HDMI, you’re already shrinking the cord length as a result, plus it’s shorter than the Vive’s already. Even though the third sensor could be moved a bit, we found that anything farther than 9 ft. away from the tower wasn’t plausible. Plus, the third sensor needs an extension cord to even reach that far.
Roomscale Tracking: Vive vs. Rift
But the real question — regardless of tech tech, setup process, or room size — is how well does it work? In the case of the HTC Vive, it’s about as flawless as we could expect. Since the base stations bathe the room in lasers over and over to track the controllers and your headset on a consistent basis, it hardly ever loses track of where you are. They’re elegant, simple, and effective. Plus, you never need more than two to cover the entire room itself.
The Rift on the other hand is bit more finicky. Once the sensors are in their ideal places, perfectly angled, and at exactly the correct recommended distance, everything works the same as the Vive. It tracks movement around the room, we were able to lay on the ground, stand on chairs, and do pretty much anything we’d ever need to do in a roomscale experience. The added sensor all but eliminates the possibility of occlusion for either of the Touch controllers.
But the sticking point here is once they were set up perfectly. It’s more difficult to mount the Oculus sensors, and any variation in height or angle seemed to really throw a wrench into the entire process. When it works, it works, but it required jumping through a few more hoops to get there.
Final Verdict: HTC Vive
Ultimately, if you’re looking for the better roomscale VR experience, then the HTC Vive is still the way to go. Setting aside the content questions (the Rift enables both Oculus Home and Steam VR games and applications, the Vive is limited to just Steam without a hack) and just focusing on the roomscale capabilities renders a clear edge to the HTC Vive, even after the Touch controllers are out and you purchase an extra sensor on top of that. For Vive, you get it all for $799. For Rift, you need the headset ($599), the Touch controllers and second sensor ($199) and a third sensor ($80). That comes out to approximately $100 more for a comparable, but still slightly inferior, roomscale experience.
The frustrating cord length, abundance of USB ports and extra cables, added price tag for a third sensor, and finicky tracking precision all add up to the Oculus Rift still not quite measuring up to the relative ease and simplicity of roomscale VR through the HTC Vive. It’s also worth noting that the entire prospect of roomscale VR was something that HTC coined with the creation of the Vive and for a piece of technology that wasn’t and still isn’t primarily designed to offer such an experience, the Rift is more than capable.
The experiences are now very close to one another, though, and the Touch controllers are better devices as a whole, but we still prefer the Vive’s lighthouse base stations over the Rift’s camera sensors. The HTC Vive should be your choice to enable VR in larger rooms with its less expensive system and simpler setup. But the Rift still offers a great roomscale experience, especially for smaller or medium-sized spaces, plus a better input solution with the Oculus Touch controllers.
What has your experience been with the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift in roomscale VR environments? Which headset do you prefer? And which controller do you think is better? Let us know in the comments below! | {
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KUALA LUMPUR (Bernama): Malaysia is a fine example of how a country can develop when it is properly administered, says Polish ambassador to Malaysia Krzysztof Debnicki.
He said that Malaysia, once considered a poor country post-Second World War, had developed in leaps and bounds to what it is today.
“I find you (Malaysia) presenting yourself as a developing country, but you are actually a developed country,” Debnicki told Bernama International News Service at its National Day reception to mark the declaration of the May 3rd Constitution 1791, here, this coming Thursday night.
The ambassador was posted to Kuala Lumpur from September last year. Prior to that, he had the experience of seeing Malaysia's development as a tourist in 1986 and 1991, and attended a conference in Kuala Lumpur in 2008.
“I can’t recognise the country now, it has advanced so much. Malaysia is a fine example of how a country can develop when it is properly run.
“Now it is among the best-developed countries,” he said.
Kuala Lumpur and Warsaw established diplomatic relations in 1971. Debnicki said both countries have vast potential to enhance their bilateral relations, notably in areas of trade, investment and business.
He said with Poland's growing economy, Polish investors are now looking beyond traditional European shores to expand their business and to tap into new markets.
“New Polish companies are looking for new avenues (to grow their business), that is how Malaysia comes into focus.
“Currently, there are 15 Polish companies operating in Malaysia. Although not many, the number is rising,” he said, adding that the embassy was ready to assist Polish firms interested in setting up their business in Malaysia.
He also said that Malaysian firms are encouraged to invest in Poland as the republic is one of the fastest growing economies in the European Union (EU) and a strategic gateway for many businesses to venture into the vast EU market. – Bernama | {
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Qatar Ends Visa Requirements For 80 Nations, Calling Itself 'Most Open' In Region
Enlarge this image toggle caption AFP/Getty Images AFP/Getty Images
"Qatar is now visa-free for over 80 countries around the world," says Group Chief Executive Officer Akbar Al Baker of state-owned Qatar Airways, as the small nation announced that it will issue waivers rather than visas — and won't be charging for the service.
The change, which is effective immediately, means that people from the U.S. and other countries are now able to enter Qatar "with no paperwork, no payment and no visas," Baker said. Visitors from 33 countries would be able to stay for up to 90 days.
The U.S. is not on that most-favored-nation list; instead, it's among the 47 other countries, such as Russia and China, whose citizens can stay in Qatar without a visa for up to 30 days.
Rather than applying for a visa beforehand, citizens of those 80 nations can obtain a visa waiver after arriving in Qatar.
Officials from Qatar's tourism and interior ministries who announced the loosening of immigration rules on Wednesday said the move makes Qatar "the most open country in the region."
Saying that the change reflects Qatar's outlook at "a historic time," Baker added, "While some countries in the region have taken to closing their skies and their borders, Qatar has instead opened its borders to more freely welcoming visitors from all corners of the world."
Immigration and international travel have been hot topics both in the U.S. — where President Trump has made tighter border controls a priority — and in the Middle East, where Qatar has been isolated by its neighbors since June.
Qatar's visa change could help the Persian Gulf country reach its target of hosting 7 million tourists annually by 2030. It could also provide some relief from the blockade led by Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates — and which Baker on Wednesday called an "illegal violation of international law."
As part of the blockade, Qatar Airways was barred from entering the airspace of Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates — although there are now signs that at least some of those restrictions might now be relaxed.
Despite the diplomatic standoff, Qatar noted that citizens of the Gulf Cooperation Council countries — Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates — and of Turkey don't need visas to enter Qatar.
Saudi Arabia and its fellow Sunni nations have accused Qatar of supporting terrorism. The peninsula nation has denied those accusations.
The U.S. response, particularly early in the dispute, has been criticized as being mixed. Even as Secretary of State Rex Tillerson sought to ease the tension and called for an end to the blockade, President Trump said that he had consulted with Saudi Arabia before calling out Qatar for what he called its "very high level" of terror financing.
Here are the 33 nations whose citizens can stay in Qatar for up to 90 days without a visa:
Austria Bahamas Belgium Bulgaria Croatia Cyprus Czech Republic Denmark Estonia Finland France Germany Greece Hungary Iceland Italy Latvia Liechtenstein Lithuania Luxembourg Malta Netherlands Norway Poland Portugal Romania Seychelles Slovakia Slovenia Spain Sweden Switzerland Turkey
And here are the 47 countries whose citizens can spend up to 30 days in Qatar without a visa: | {
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Courtesy of Fadi Mansour Fadi Mansour has been detained in a Turkish airport for more than one year. The reason behind his detention has no legal basis, Amnesty International alleges.
While many travelers gripe about being stuck at the airport for hours after delayed flights, a 28-year-old Syrian man is still waiting to leave a Turkish airport after an exceptionally long time: 369 days, to be exact.
After civil war engulfed his hometown of Homs, Syria, Fadi Mansour fled the country in 2012 to avoid military conscription and start a new life. Now, he spends day and night in a tiny, crowded "Problematic Passengers Room" at Istanbul's Atatürk Airport -- where he has been detained for more than a year.
"I have forgotten what it means to be human," Mansour told The WorldPost over email.
He left Syria for Lebanon in 2012, but sought refuge in Turkey in 2014 after being kidnapped by a local gang, according to Amnesty International. His troubles didn't end there.
The former law student worked with a smuggler to try to reach Europe via Malaysia, but he was denied entry and was returned to Atatürk Airport on March 15, 2015. Amnesty alleges that Turkish officials have held him there ever since without any legal reasoning.
Beyond an iPad and a few articles of clothing he had with him when initially detained, Mansour has no possessions at the airport. He says his new living quarters have no natural light or fresh air.
The room was designed to hold a capacity of three people, Mansour notes, but there are typically 30 to 40 passengers and other detainees crammed inside. He sometimes wakes up in the middle of the night to vomit, which he attributes to the poor air quality.
Occasionally, Mansour is permitted to go into the hallway and sit in the metal seats. He says he sleeps on a "very old and uncomfortable" chair that converts to a bed, under artificial lights and an air conditioning unit that are never turned off. Mansour's daily meals consist of fast food from the airport, and he says he's been losing weight all year.
It is lunch time, please come and share my one-year daily dish pic.twitter.com/jO5rV7knhx — Fadi Mansour (@Fadimans0ur) March 16, 2016
Amnesty claims Mansour has been held in "inhumane conditions," but the refugee says he cannot elaborate until he is freed. He lives in constant fear of being deported back to Syria, and says Turkish officials have warned him he will never be allowed to live in their country.
The United Nations has registered more than 4.8 million Syrian refugees to date, and 2.7 million of them currently live in Turkey. Millions of others have fled to Europe to escape the violent conflict devastating their country.
Mansour has applied for a visa to live with relatives in Australia, and his lawyer has asked the Turkish courts to approve his release, but both requests stand pending.
While his future remains uncertain, he has has not given up hope.
"I want to live; I need my freedom," he said. "I am waiting for mercy." | {
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A man is accused of pulling a gun on a neighbor who was teaching his 7-year-old daughter how to ride a bike in Rosemount.
Gary Drake, 61, is facing second-degree assault and terroristic threat charges after he pointed a shotgun at his neighbor and threatened to kill him on May 25, according to a criminal complaint.
The complaint says:
While a father was teaching his daughter how to ride a bike on the street outside of Drake's Daytona Way home, Drake began making comments about the father's tactics. The father told him, "I've got it." But Drake said, "If you don't like my advice, get off my street." The father said Drake didn't own the street. Drake appeared to get angrier, and then went inside his home. As the father and daughter were making their way away from Drake's house, he came back outside with a shotgun and threatened to kill the father. Drake's wife came outside and pulled the gun away and physically dragged Drake inside. Drake went outside again and told the father he was going to kill him. When arresting officers told Drake his charges, he said, "Maybe next time I should have shot him." Drake admitted drinking all day, but he said that didn't influence his actions. Drake's wife told police he pointed a gun at the man and she tried to stop him. She voluntarily gave Drake's shotgun to police, along with his rifle.
The father told FOX 9 that he's still shaken by the encounter. Neighbors were surprised that Drake, a well-known neighbor, had threatened someone with a gun, the news station reports.
The incident was one of a number recently in which a neighbor has threatened violence against another neighbor. In March, police said a Rosemount man pulled a gun on his neighbor after losing a game of cribbage. Peter Eldon Kvam, 60, was charged with second-degree assault and one count of terroristic threats.
Last week, a Carver County man was charged with attempted murder after he admitted to shooting at his neighbor and his 11-year-old son while they planted corn, police said.
Earlier in May, a long-simmering dispute between New Brighton neighbors turned deadly when a man shot and killed his neighbor, and injured his neighbor's girlfriend. | {
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Donald Trump had shown himself to be a "fascist threat" who posed the gravest risk to the United States since that country's Civil War, a top-ranking US Democrat warned in Sydney on Thursday.
Martin O'Malley, a one-time governor of Maryland and former entrant in this year's presidential contest, said it was encouraging that Hillary Clinton was now doing better in the race to the White House in the aftermath of the first two debates against Mr Trump.
Former Maryland governor Martin O'Malley. Credit:AP
But he said "the threat has not passed. Democracy is always a fragile thing. Perhaps it was hubris for us to think that we were so much better than Germany in 1936."
Mr O'Malley said there remained a "profound sense of alienation" among many American voters who had seen their wages flat-line or decline over the past decade, and it was startling that Mr Trump had not yet been relegated to "slinking along in single digits" in the polls. | {
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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 20/8/2012 (2962 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
An Osborne Village institution is getting ready to turn off its pizza ovens for good.
Papa George’s restaurant, a neighbourhood mainstay for more than three decades, will close in mid-October.
JOE BRYKSA / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Papa George's, a favorite place for late-night diners, will be closing its doors this fall.
"I’m retiring. My health isn’t that good," said owner Nick Kontzamanis.
The 25 or so staff members have known about the move since earlier this summer.
Papa George’s is perhaps best known – thanks largely to its neon signs – for being open until 4 a.m. | {
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The "No Man's Sky" release date for the PS4 has been allegedly set to August 2015 and the PC version to be on 2016 following a recent leak that allege that the game would be available by Q3 2015.
Design and Trend has reported that the Play Magazine has revealed that the "No Man's Sky" release date window is going to be on Q3 2015.
"This news comes to Design & Trend via a short feature in Australia's Play Magazine. Devinup from the 'No Man's Sky' Reddit community provided the scan," wrote Design and Trend.
Design and Trend then stated, "Of utmost controversy is possible clarity on the title's release date. As seen at the very top of the scan, 'No Man's Sky' is advertised for a Q3 2015 release date window."
Previously, Cyberland reported that the "No Man's Sky" release date for the PS4 was reportedly set by Hello Games to be on August 2015 while the PC version would be available on 2016. Cyberland also reported that new footage and details of the game would be allegedly revealed on GDC 2015.
"My contact over at Hello Games told me that they are planning to release the game on August for the PS4, just after E3. Expect new gameplay videos and a lot more stuff that's going to be announced at GDC. PC release is going to be on 2016" as was noted on the report.
Meanwhile, Gamespot reported that Hello Games explained why the PC version of the game is going to be delayed compared to the PS4 version of "No Man's Sky.
"Now we know that No Man's Sky will, in fact, launch on PC--although not right away. In the September issue of Edge, the game is confirmed to be a timed PS4 exclusive and will be released on computers at a later date" as was noted on the report.
Gamespot also quotes Hello Games' Sean Murray about the PS4 and PC release of "No Man's Sky":
"I actually got in a bit of trouble for saying that we wanted the game to feel really 'console-y'. We've always had PC in mind but in my head [console-y] means solid framerate and immediate controls. I think a PC game can be 'console-y' and it's intended as a compliment, but I get in trouble for saying it." | {
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Story highlights Teenager was taking selfie with his father's gun when he accidentally pulled the trigger
Ramandeep Singh, 15, was rushed to hospital but couldn't be saved
(CNN) A teenage boy in India has died after accidentally shooting himself in the head while taking a selfie.
Fifteen-year-old Ramandeep Singh was posing with his father's .32 caliber pistol on Friday evening when he accidentally pulled the trigger, according Manoj Kumar, Deputy Superintendent of Police in Pathankot, Punjab state.
Ramandeep Singh
The safety catch wasn't on, police said.
Singh was taken to hospital where he underwent surgery but died of his injuries on Sunday afternoon.
Read More | {
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The Angels have acquired Tommy Hanson from the Braves, reports Jon Heyman of CBSSports.com (on Twitter). Atlanta will receive Jordan Walden in the one-for-one trade, MLBTR has learned. The teams have confirmed the trade.
Hanson, 26, pitched to a 4.48 ERA with 8.3 K/9 and 3.7 BB/9 in 174 2/3 innings this year. The right-hander missed time with shoulder tendinitis last season, and his fastball velocity has been trending in the wrong direction as well. Hanson is arbitration-eligible for the first time this winter, and Matt Swartz projects a $4MM salary. He will remain under team control through 2015.
Walden, 25, pitched to 3.46 ERA with 11.1 K/9 and 4.2 BB/9 in 39 innings this year while missing time with a biceps strain. He was an All-Star as a rookie just last season, when he posted a 2.98 ERA with 34 saves in 60 1/3 innings. Walden is under team control through 2016. Earlier this week we heard he was "very available" after the Angels signed Ryan Madson.
The Angels are in the market for starting pitching this offseason after trading Ervin Santana and declining Dan Haren's option. Zack Greinke is a free agent as well, though he is in very high demand. Hanson gives the club a young arm to fill out the rotation behind Jered Weaver and C.J. Wilson. Walden, meanwhile, gives the Braves bullpen depth and a power right-handed setup man in front of closer Craig Kimbrel.
Photo courtesy of US Presswire. | {
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Hi, ich bin Franz. Seit 2016 Bachelor Student in Mensch-Computer-Interaktion an der Uni Hamburg. Vorher Videoredakteur bei Spiegel Online für bento. Leidenschaft für Datenanalyse und Datenbanken. | {
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It happened to bitcoin last year and this rare network occurrence can hit its alternative currencies.
The fourth most valuable cryptocurrency Dogecoin “forked” Monday — meaning that the virtual currency’s blockchain has split into two competing chains.
Alert Redditors quickly posted updates and guidance for dogecoin miners, apparently isolating one of the chains as the one most likely to remain intact.
Cryptocurrencies use a single “chain” — or blockchain — of transactions to achieve consensus and to solve the double-spending issues.
It appears the blockchain from clients “version 1.5+” won’t be orphaned. What does that mean for the chain put out by older client “version ~1.4”?
Since there are two chains, a user on the wrong “fork” could perceive a transaction as completed, when it is actually not completed.
This is not the dreaded “51% attack” — which could theoretically threaten network security of the particular altcoin affected.
The network will survive the fork, as did bitcoin about a year ago.
As usual, the dogecoin subReddit is guiding miners and other dogecoiners on the issue. | {
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From Tbilisi to a tent: What next for the Saakashvili circus? By Jonah Fisher
BBC Kiev correspondent Published duration 7 December 2017
media caption Jonah Fisher watched as Mr Saakashvili's car was surrounded by his supporters and Ukrainian police.
It's often said that a circus surrounds Georgia's former president.
Some dismiss him as a clown. But like him or loath him, and few Ukrainians are in-between, there is something of the magician about Mikheil Saakashvili.
The 49-year-old's power for reinvention, and the improbable have created a political persona that no native Ukrainian can match.
This week it seemed inevitable that the next chapter of the Saakashvili story would be set in prison. He'd been arrested at his Kiev home by security officials and bundled into a police van.
Prosecutors were accusing him of receiving funding from an ally of Ukraine's former President Viktor Yanukovych and a lengthy spell in jail, or possibly deportation back to Georgia seemed likely.
In the best Saakashvili tradition, salvation was quite literally just round the corner. Several hundred of his supporters managed to block the police van that was taking him away.
image copyright Reuters image caption In chaotic scenes, supporters freed Mr Saakashvili from the police car
Hundreds of riot police soon arrived and in most countries you'd expect them to ultimately come out on top.
But this is Ukraine, and memories are still fresh of how violent clashes and state brutality helped turn a relatively small protest into the 2014 Maidan revolution.
The message from Ukraine's leaders in these situations is now clear: avoid at all costs violence that could lead to casualties and martyrs.
So for several hours Mr Saakashvili's supporters wrestled and grappled with the hamstrung police. Pepper spray was used, but not much more, and the crowd steadily pulled and pushed its way closer to Mr Saakashvili's stranded police van.
After three hours of grappling the inevitable occurred and Mr Saakashvili emerged Houdini-like, brandishing a handcuff on one wrist.
"We will go to parliament and call for the impeachment of (President Petro) Poroshenko, who is a thief, who is mega-corrupt and is plundering the whole of Ukraine," he told me just before he was swept through central Kiev by his jubilant supporters.
Friends no more
Two years ago, Mr Saakashvili and President Poroshenko were friends. Ukraine's leader was impressed by the way Mr Saakashvili had run Georgia between 2004 and 2013 and invited him to join Ukrainian political life.
Mr Saakashvili was gifted Ukrainian citizenship and made governor of the port city of Odessa. Perhaps inevitably, given the egos involved, things quickly soured.
Eighteen months later Mr Saakashvili resigned, accusing the president of failing to support him in the fight against corruption. Mr Poroshenko has denied the allegations.
Read more about Mr Saakashvili
image copyright Alamy image caption No more smiles or handshakes: Mr Saakashvili (R) now accuses Mr Poroshenko of being a "thief"
Far from retreating into the shadows, or back to his Georgian homeland, Mr Saakashvili reinvented himself yet again, becoming an opposition politician in Ukraine and one of President Poroshenko's most outspoken critics.
While Mr Saakashvili was overseas it was announced that his Ukrainian citizenship had been taken away. Having already given up his Georgian passport Mr Saakashvili was now stateless, so he boldly announced that he would return to Ukraine through Poland on 10 September.
Kiev's political class laughed, certain that he'd be stopped. But on September the 10th, Mr Saakashvili did exactly what he'd promised and was swept through the Shehyni border crossing surrounded by supporters and fellow opposition politicians.
From meandering towards obscurity, Mr Saakashvili had, thanks to President Poroshenko, become once again a headline attraction.
image copyright Reuters image caption Mr Saakashvili, jubilant after being freed, said the protests would continue
Arriving triumphantly in Kiev, Mr Saakashvili helped establish a tented camp outside Ukraine's parliament. Many of those in it were veterans of the still on-going conflict with Russian backed rebels in eastern Ukraine.
The camps stated aim was to push anti-corruption reforms through parliament but for Mr Saakashvili's the goal has always been much clearer. To nurture a people's revolution similar to the Maidan that would to lead to the removal from office of President Poroshenko.
Mr Poroshenko's critics say he's failed to deliver on his post-Maidan promises.
Ukraine is one of Europe's most corrupt countries and Mr Poroshenko has been accused of delaying efforts to set up a specialised anti-corruption court, while undermining the independence of the agency tasked with investigating corrupt officials.
'Political freak'
For all the drama, and the dissatisfaction with President Poroshenko, Mr Saakashvili's biggest problem is the reaction of the rest of the Ukraine to him.
So far there's little sign of a genuine mass movement forming. Many see him as a political freak, an ego driven sideshow. The snow dusted tented camp only has a couple of hundred occupants, and his rallies have mustered just a few thousand.
Not that the numbers bother Mr Saakashvili. When I spoke to him this week he insisted that he was at least as popular as President Poroshenko and that his rallies were the biggest since the Maidan. While he can't constitutionally be president, he told me he has his eyes on a role in a future government, ideally prime minister.
image copyright EPA image caption Anti-Poroshenko protesters have set up a camp outside Ukraine's parliament
For now there's the constant fear of arrest. On Tuesday, while Mr Saakashvili was still inside a police van, Ukraine's Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko held a press conference outlining the charges against him.
A phone tap was played, allegedly of a phone call between Mr Saakashvili and a businessman called Sergei Kurchenko, who's known to be close to the Russia-leaning former President Viktor Yanukovych.
"It's totally fake," Mr Saakashvili told me from outside his tent. "I don't know a Mr Kurchenko, I don't know how he looks, I don't know how he sounds."
It would certainly be extraordinary if Mr Saakashvili had become some sort of Russian-backed agent-provocateur.
As he likes to frequently remind people, he's spent his entire political career both in Georgia, and now in Ukraine opposed to Moscow and President Putin. | {
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A federal court in Michigan ruled in favor of police shooting a dog that moves or barks when an officer enters a home.
NBC affiliate WCMH-TV reports the decision stems from an incident in Battle Creek, Michigan that left two dogs dead while police officers were executing a search warrant on a home looking for drugs.
Court documents show a petition was filed by Mark and Cheryl Brown after the pet owners say officers “unlawfully seized their property in violation of the Fourth Amendment when officers shot and killed two dogs” while executing the warrant in their home, according to WCMH.
Officers involved in the shooting testified that one of the couple’s pit bulls lunged at them before retreating to the basement of the home, according to court documents, where it was shot and killed. One of the officers then shot the second dog after turned and barked, WCMH reports.
The officer said in court that he shot the dog after he saw “blood coming out of numerous holes in the dog and…did not want to see it suffer so he put her out of her misery and fired the last shot,” according to WCMH.
In the court’s decision to defend the shooting of the animals, according to WMCH, Judge Eric Clay said that Mark and Cheryl Brown failed to provide evidence that their dogs did not lunge or bark at the officers.
“Given the totality of the circumstances and viewed from the perspective of an objectively reasonable officer, the dog poses an imminent threat to the officer’s safety,” Clay said in a statement to WCMH on his decision. “The standard we set out today is that a police officer’s use of deadly force against a dog while executing a search warrant to search a home for illegal drug activity is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment when…the dog poses an imminent threat to the officer’s safety.” | {
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NFL rules prohibit any team trading for Bell to give him a multi-year deal until after the 2018 season, so he would, in effect, be a one-year rental. Logic, of course, would dictate that a team trading for Bell would want to have a behind-the-scenes multi-year agreement in place before pulling the trigger on a trade with Pittsburgh. The NFL trade deadline is Oct. 30. | {
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Olivier Giroud is determined to continue his fine scoring record against Newcastle United.
The France international has registered eight times against the Magpies, including a brace at St James’ Park last season.
The Gunners are back in the North East on Saturday, and Giroud hopes he can lead the team to victory once again.
Play video Watch Arsenal video online 10:06 Newcastle 1-2 Arsenal, March 21, 2015
“You want obviously to continue the good momentum,” he told Arsenal Player. “For me it will be a bit special, but the main thing is to return to London with the three points.
“I am not going to say [why I do well against Newcastle] because then there are no more secrets - I need to keep them for me! It is maybe luck or I don’t know, but I really want to keep scoring against them and help the team win the three points
“It doesn’t matter who scores, but if it is me I will be really happy because it is always nice for a striker to score.
“We need the win, so we will go there with a big motivation before the international break. It is never easy to play there, even if we have been successful in the last games against them, especially there. We are aware it is going to be a tough game and we need to be at 100 per cent.”
ADVERT | {
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After years of working from coffee shops and couches, there's one thing I'm certain of: working remotely is hard. Incredibly hard.
On paper, it sounds all rainbows and unicorns—you get to choose your own hours, you don't need to deal with a boss looming over your shoulder, and you can even work in your pajamas.
But working from home can just as easily be defined by poor productivity, low energy, and the slippery slope of procrastination. You spend half your time battling distractions, and the other half fighting off the guilt that comes from giving in to those distractions.
How can you work from home while keeping your focus? I've been working remotely for over a decade, collecting productivity tactics along with my friend Dan Shure. These tricks keep us productive, and can help you find the best way to work remotely—for you.
1. Start your day right
How you start your day often determines how you end it. If you check Facebook immediately after you wake up, there's a good chance that behavior will carry over to the rest of your day.
Turns out there's some research to back this up: your energy and willpower peak in the morning. Throughout the day, your willpower is diminished, which means you're more susceptible to distractions. That three-hour Netflix binge sounds a lot more appealing when you've already been slacking off since the morning.
Besides the usual—like exercise, diet, and meditation—there are four habits I've developed that help me start my days right.
Start work as early as possible
Hemingway allegedly wrote every morning. Richard Branson is up and about no later than 5:45 a.m.—even on his private island.
You'll find that rising before the sun is a habit shared by most successful people.
This makes sense from a productivity standpoint: you have willpower and fewer distractions early in the morning. By tackling your to-do list as soon as you wake up, you'll avoid the desperate last minute rush to get things done.
Plus, according to one study, waking up early can also make you happier.
Make your bed first thing in the morning
Before I do anything else in the morning, I make my bed. That's advice I picked up from William McRaven, a former U.S. Navy Admiral and the 9th Commander of USSOCOM.
Here's what he says about making your bed after waking up:
If you make your bed every morning, you will have accomplished the first task of the day. It will give you a small sense of pride. And it will encourage you to do another task. By the end of the day, that one task will reinforce the fact that the little things in life matter…and if you can't do the little things right, you'll never do the big things right.
This is something productivity guru Tim Ferriss swears by, too—making your bed after you wake up gives you a sense of accomplishment and crosses at least one task off your to-do list. Plus, no matter what the day throws at you, it's one thing you can control.
I find that it also keeps me from checking my phone in bed—a massive productivity killer.
Drink a glass of water after waking up
This might sound mundane, but drinking enough water can have a pretty big impact on productivity. And when's the last time you had your full eight cups a day?
Dehydration is bad for your health, and also bad for your productivity:
Drinking water can increase metabolic rate by up to 30 percent in healthy adults, especially after waking up.
Drinking water can make the brain work 14 percent faster, especially if it has been in a dehydrated state (like after eight hours of sleep).
Drinking a glass of water right after waking up takes care of two problems: it kickstarts your metabolism and helps you meet the goal of eight cups a day. It's a simple solution to a big problem.
Prep for success the night before
"The most effective practice lies in the preparation," says Stephen Nachmanovitch in Free Play. He was talking about practicing art and music, but it also applies to work.
Essentially, by setting up your environment prior to starting your workday, you can jump right into your most important tasks, without worrying about meaningless details that detract from your mental gas tank.
So clear your desk of distractions—even washing its surface will make you more productive. Try to plan out your to-dos the night before. And prep your lunch and snacks for the day ahead of time, so you can fuel your body without wasting effort on decision-making.
Also, clear as much of your email inbox as possible the night before. This way, even if you're tempted to open email or need to check something in your inbox, you're not derailed by new messages.
2. Change your work environment regularly
I spend most of my days working from my home office. But sometimes, I head over to a coffee shop or local co-working space to change my work environment.
Contrary to popular belief, a bit of ambient noise—the soft chatter inside a coffee shop, for example—can actually increase productivity. In one study published in the Journal of Consumer Research, light noise (at around 70db) was found to improve focus more than silence (at around 50db).
Related: The science of music and productivity
Then there's the famous Hawthorne Effect, where people improve their behavior when they are being observed. That means you'll be less likely to slack off on Reddit if others are watching—one reason why people working from co-working places report a 6-7 point improvement in productivity.
However, not all environment changes have to be as drastic. Even something small as moving from a sitting desk to a standing desk can give you an immediate boost in productivity.
3. Understand your willpower—and make use of it
Willpower is a quintessentially human trait, but most of us don't really understand it.
Research shows that willpower, like energy, is a finite resource. You start every day with a limited quantity of "willpower points". As you move through the day—making (and putting off) decisions—you spend those points. Once you're depleted, you're prone to temptations and distractions.
The key to productivity is to manage these "willpower points" so you have more energy for making hard decisions (and ignoring distractions).
Here are a two things that work for both me and Dan:
Choose the "path of least resistance"
Every time you fight off a temptation, you spend some willpower points. Actively resisting the urge to eat a donut is harder than not having the donut at all. I call this "choosing the path of least resistance". Instead of fighting off temptations, you remove them from your surroundings altogether.
No temptations, no willpower wasted.
If you're trying to lose weight, you wouldn't stuff your freezer with ice cream. You'd tame your urges by eliminating your access to them. Similarly, if you're trying to avoid social media, blocking the sites altogether will conserve more willpower than actively avoiding the urge to open Facebook in a new tab.
Design your environment to prevent failure
When I walk into my office every morning, I have three things already set up for me:
My laptop up and running
A to-do list
My primary work tools—Google Calendar, Google Docs, and Photoshop—already open
This way, I don't have to dawdle around while I wait for the laptop to load or figure out what tasks to tackle for the day.
By designing my work environment this way, I hit the ground running instead of fighting off distractions. This conserves willpower and ensures I don't lose momentum.
Learn how to strengthen your willpower with our guide to building perseverance and avoiding distractions.
4. Keep your work and personal spaces separate
When you're working from home, it's easy to curl up in bed with a laptop and pretend that you're "working". I should know—I did that for years.
I had my biggest productivity gains when I started treating my work and personal areas as separate spaces. I used my bedroom just for sleeping, the living room for entertaining friends, and built a separate home office just for work.
This helps set the frame for improved productivity. When you enter your home office, you don't expect to take a nap or watch TV. Your brain gets spatially wired to think of the office as the place where work happens.
You get bonus points if you dress up in office attire (or at least something more formal than PJs) when you're working at home.
Plus, the separation creates a mini "commute." Simply walking from the bedroom to the office signals that you're physically moving between work and personal space. Your brain automatically switches into productivity mode when it starts seeing the work area as a place to get things done.
5. Make better use of productivity tools
Every productive person I know has their own "recipe" of productivity tools. Some of them keep it sparse, using a couple of tools at most. Others use complicated combos to keep track of everything.
Here are the tools I use for keeping my productivity up:
Music/ambient sound : I swap between Noisli for ambient sounds, Brain.fm for productivity music, or a custom YouTube playlist.
: I swap between Noisli for ambient sounds, Brain.fm for productivity music, or a custom YouTube playlist. To-do list : I switch between Any.do and Todoist to manage tasks.
: I switch between Any.do and Todoist to manage tasks. Keybr : I write a lot. This tool helps me type faster so I can get more done in less time.
: I write a lot. This tool helps me type faster so I can get more done in less time. Trello : I use Trello to keep track of long-term projects and collaborate with others in kanban boards.
: I use Trello to keep track of long-term projects and collaborate with others in kanban boards. StayFocused: A Chrome extension that blocks access to distracting sites (such as Facebook or Reddit) after a set number of minutes. Very useful if you've been struggling to keep off social media.
You'll need your own set of apps to stay focused and productive. Check out Zapier's app roundups to find the best software, and make sure your toolkit keeps you productive. If a tool isn't getting the job done, it's time to switch to another app.
6. A/B test different productivity methods
The pages of the web's most popular blogs are packed with "game-changing" productivity techniques. Here are a few methods I've tried:
Pomodoro Technique : This technique follows the 25/5 principle—you work for 25 minutes, followed by a 5-minute break.
: This technique follows the 25/5 principle—you work for 25 minutes, followed by a 5-minute break. GTD (Getting Things Done) : This technique has you delegate and prioritize your tasks in lists.
: This technique has you delegate and prioritize your tasks in lists. ABC & Pareto Principle: This method is often used in business management. Tasks are divided into three categories—A (urgent and important), B (important but not urgent), and C (neither urgent, nor important). After this, tasks that take the least amount of time from A are tackled first based on Pareto Principle (or the 80/20 rule).
But here's the problem: These techniques rarely work for everyone. The popular Pomodoro Technique, for example, requires you to break a five-minute break after every 25 minutes of work.
This sounds great if you're working on a "manager's schedule," with your day broken into hour-long blocks. However, if you're writing, coding, or doing anything creative (i.e., following a "maker's schedule"), two breaks every 50 minutes is two breaks too many.
Instead of forcing one method to fit your work style, try A/B testing different time management techniques on yourself. That way, you're not flying blind, and you can zero in on your perfect system for personal productivity.
With this approach, you'd try out technique A on Day 1 and technique B on Day 2. Track your mood and productivity over a couple of weeks and you'll get a fair idea of which technique works better for you.
Find more ways to manage your personal tasks with our roundup of task management strategies.
7. Track and gamify your productivity
There's a simple maxim in management science: what can be measured, can be improved.
This applies to productivity as well. If you track how many hours you've worked, your mood, and your number of tasks completed, you can spot weaknesses and improve your performance. Once you have data, you can even up the ante by gamifying productivity—say, rewarding yourself with a favorite treat if you exceed eight hours of work for five days in a row.
You could track your productivity with an app like RescueTime, but I prefer an old-fashioned method. I create a spreadsheet for each month and track the number of hours I worked each day, using a time-tracking app like Toggl to tally the minutes. You can connect it to Google Sheets with a Zapier integration to automatically log each day's time.
To push myself further, I create a lower and upper limit (in daily hours). Dipping below the lower limit invites a penalty. Going over the upper limit gets me a reward.
I then create a chart for the month so I know whether my productivity is going up or down. Here's what your spreadsheet might look like:
And here's the accompanying chart I add, to view my productivity at a glance:
At a glance, I can see if I'm doing well, when I'm slacking off, and how many hours I'm working every day/week/month on average.
Learn how to make your own Google Sheets powered dashboard to track your productivity and business metrics.
8. Build habits with the X-Cards technique
Most of these tactics require making a new habit—the holy grail of productivity. So, how long will that take?
Phillippa Lally is a health psychology researcher at University College London. Lally and her research team published a study in the European Journal of Social Psychology where they tried to figure out how long it really takes to form a habit.
After examining 96 people for 12 weeks, they concluded it takes two months on average before a new behavior becomes automatic—66 days to be precise.
I'm not going to tell you that's a hard-and-fast rule—you won't magically enter habit-mode after 66 days. But it's a good benchmark to shoot for.
One way to measure your progress is by using the X-card technique. (Some people call this the "Seinfeld Technique", named after comedian Jerry Seinfeld who allegedly wrote one joke a day—every day—to hone his craft.)
The technique is simple enough: start by creating an "X-Card," an index card divided into a 7x7 grid of 49 boxes. Or, you could use a dedicated app like 7 weeks.
On top of each card, write the habit you want to stick with. Every time you stick to that habit, you mark it with a big X in one of the boxes.
For example, if you decide to go to bed every day before midnight, your X-card will look like this:
Every day before you go to bed, cross the boxes one by one. By the time you are done with all the boxes you'd have formed a habit.
But here's the catch: you need to keep the streak alive. Building a habit means taking the same action every single day. Whenever you need a little extra motivation, remind yourself that missing an X means your streak is busted, and you'll need to start from square one.
Staying productive while working from home is a big issue—perhaps the biggest issue for remote workers.
How you choose to face that challenge won't just determine your productivity—it will determine your future success and even your happiness. If you adapt these tips to your life, you just might find that your time off the clock is more productive, too.
Working remotely can be difficult—but it's something that's more and more common. The entire Zapier team works remotely, and you can find all of our remote work resources in our guide to working remotely.
Dan Shure, founder of Evolving SEO, contributed to this post.
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The populist Democrat running for Montana’s open seat in the House of Representatives has hit a major fundraising milestone, as a race ignored until last month by party officials heats up in its final week.
Donations to Rob Quist, the bluegrass legend who won an unlikely bid for the nomination in March, have surpassed $5 million, his campaign announced on Thursday. The contributions averaged less than $25 each and came from roughly 200,000 individuals. For context, donations to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who has endorsed Quist, averaged $27 donations during his insurgent bid for the Democratic presidential nomination last year.
Fundraising surged this month after Greg Gianforte, Quist’s multimillionaire Republican opponent, waffled on his support for the controversial health care bill just passed by the House. Gianforte told conservative lobbyists he backed the bill in a private call later published by The New York Times. He walked back the comment days later amid uproar from the more than 70,000 voters whose health insurance could be imperiled if the deeply unpopular American Health Care Act becomes law.
Quist, who supports single-payer health care and legalizing marijuana, has weathered his own history of financial woes, stemming from what he says was a botched gallbladder surgery that for years left him unqualified for affordable insurance.
Forced to pay out of pocket for follow-up surgeries, Quist accessed Social Security and sold off part of the ranch he inherited from his family. In October 1994, the doctor responsible for the surgery denied allegations of malpractice, according to a report published this week by the conservative Washington Free Beacon.
William Campbell via Getty Images Rob Quist is famous in Montana for fronting the Mission Mountain Wood Band.
“Rob’s story is resonating with voters who want someone who will stand up for them,” Tina Olechowski, Quist’s communication director, said in a statement. “After medical complications following surgery, Rob got into debt. He paid off his debt, but Rob believes no one should ever face bankruptcy just because they get sick.”
By contrast, Gianforte, who narrowly lost a bid for the Montana governor’s mansion last year, raised $2 million from the Congressional Leadership Fund, a dark-money super PAC funded by “tobacco companies, video game manufacturers, other corporations and wealthy donors,” according to Bloomberg BNA. The tech mogul, who sold a software company to cloud-computing giant Oracle for $1.5 billion in 2011, loaned himself $1 million to finance his campaign ahead of the May 25 special election.
Republican attacks on Quist’s personal financial struggles have increased amid heightened scrutiny of Gianforte’s own investments. Gianforte listed in financial disclosures a nearly $48,000 stake in a French-Swiss cement maker accused of making payments to the Islamic State terror group, as HuffPost first reported on Wednesday. President Donald Trump criticized Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton last August for once accepting a donation to the Clinton Foundation from the company. Vice President Mike Pence and Donald Trump Jr., the president’s son, campaigned last week alongside Gianforte.
Rob will represent all Montanans, not just the millionaires, and that’s why he’ll win next week. Tina Olechowski, communications director for Quist's campaign
Gianforte also invested nearly $250,000 in index funds with holdings in Gazprom and Rosneft, the Kremlin-controlled oil and gas firms sanctioned by the U.S. after Russia invaded Crimea, The Guardian reported last month.
Gianforte had a 6-point lead over Quist in a poll released earlier this month by a Democratic political action committee. But internal GOP polling shifted against Gianforte last weekend amid proliferating scandals coming from the White House, according to the conservative blogger and radio host Erick Erickson.
Shane Scanlon, a spokesman for Gianforte, did not respond to a request for comment.
“Rob will represent all Montanans, not just the millionaires,” Olechowski said on Thursday, “and that’s why he’ll win next week.” | {
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Das Tauziehen um eine rechtssichere Grundlage für den Betrieb offener Funknetze geht in die heiße Phase. Am morgigen Mittwoch werden Vertreter der Unionsfraktionen und der SPD hinter verschlossenen Türen erneut über eine Reform der sogenannten WLAN-Störerhaftung verhandeln. Nachdem der dazu vorliegende Gesetzentwurf der Bundesregierung (.pdf) Mitte Dezember im Rahmen einer Sachverständigenanhörung von den anwesenden Experten förmlich in der Luft zerrissen wurde, suchen die Regierungsfraktionen nun fieberhaft nach einer Lösung, um auf die umfangreiche Kritik an dem Gesetzentwurf zu reagieren.
Der derzeit dem Wirtschaftsausschuss des Bundestages vorliegende Entwurf will Funknetzbetreiber nur dann aus der Haftung für Rechtsverletzungen durch Nutzerinnen und Nutzer entlassen, wenn sie „angemessene Sicherungsmaßnahmen gegen den unberechtigten Zugriff auf das drahtlose Netzwerk ergriffen“ haben und nur denjenigen Personen Zugang zum Internet gewähren, die erklärt haben, „im Rahmen der Nutzung keine Rechtsverletzungen zu begehen.“
Die Kritik der Sachverständigen richtete sich gegen beide vorgesehenen Bedingungen. Während die SPD recht zügig darauf reagierte und nun erfreulicherweise eine bedingungslose Abschaffung der WLAN-Störerhaftung fordert (.pdf), will die Union offenbar weiterhin zumindest an dem Erfordernis der sogenannten „Rechtstreueerklärung“ festhalten. Der Gesetzentwurf schreibt nicht vor, in welcher Art und Weise (etwa mündlich, schriftlich oder elektronisch) ein WLAN-Betreiber sich von den Nutzerinnen und Nutzern erklären lassen muss, dass sie bei der Nutzung des Internet keine Rechtsverletzungen begehen werden. Technisch könnte dies theoretisch im Wege einer Vorschaltseite geschehen. Nutzerinnen und Nutzer müssten auf dieser Seite zunächst die Rechtstreueerklärung „abklicken“, um sodann über ein WLAN-Netzwerk Zugang zum Internet zu erhalten.
Eine solche Rechtstreueerklärung, wie von der Union gewünscht, als Voraussetzung für die Befreiung von der WLAN-Störerhaftung zwingend vorzuschreiben, wirft jedoch in juristischer, technischer und praktischer Hinsicht zahlreiche Probleme auf. Das Festhalten an dieser Bedingung ist umso unverständlicher, da die bloße Abgabe einer Rechtstreueerklärung niemanden davon abhalten wird, im Internet Rechtsverletzungen zu begehen. Weitaus besser könnte den vor allem auf Unionsseite immer wieder geäußerten Bedenken, ohne Rechtstreueerklärung seien offene Netze gleichermaßen Einfallstore für anonyme Kriminalität im Internet, durch eine evidenzbasierte Evaluation der Auswirkungen des Gesetzes nach Ablauf von 2 Jahren begegnet werden. Im Folgenden legen wir daher noch einmal knapp die zahlreichen Argumente gegen das Erfordernis einer Rechtstreueerklärung dar.
Juristische Argumente:
Der Entwurf legt nicht fest, in welcher Weise die Rechtstreueerklärung abgegeben/eingeholt werden muss. Dadurch wird eine neue Rechtsunsicherheit geschaffen, die das gesetzgeberische Ziel gefährdet.
Bedingungen wie eine Rechtstreueerklärung gehen am vereinbarten gesetzgeberischen Ziel vorbei, weil sie Zugangshürden auf- statt abbauen. Im Koalitionsvertrag heißt es auf Seite 35 zum Thema WLAN: „Wir wollen, dass in deutschen Städten mobiles Internet über WLAN für jeden verfügbar ist. Wir werden die gesetzlichen Grundlagen für die Nutzung dieser offenen Netze und deren Anbieter schaffen.“ Offene Netze zeichnen sich aber gerade dadurch aus, dass es keine Zugangshürden gibt.
Wie schon die EU-Kommission in ihren Bemerkungen im Rahmen der TRIS-Notifizierung feststellte, verletzt eine Rechtstreueerklärung als Bedingung für die Haftungsprivilegierung die Grundrechte aus Art. 16 (Recht auf unternehmerische Freiheit) und Art. 11 (Meinungsfreiheit) EU-Grundrechtscharta. Die Maßnahme stellt einen unverhältnismäßigen Eingriff in diese Grundrechte dar, weil sie zur Erreichung des damit verfolgten Ziels (Verhinderung von Rechtsverletzungen) bereits evident ungeeignet ist.
Soweit der TMG-Entwurf mit der Rechtstreueerklärung auf das Einrichten einer Vorschaltseite abzielt, widerspricht er der bisherigen Regelung in § 8 Abs. 1 Nr. 3 TMG. Eine Vorschaltseite würde stets mit einer Manipulation des Traffics einhergehen. § 8 Abs. 1 Nr. 3 TMG verlangt als Voraussetzung für die Haftungsfreistellung aber gerade, dass der Diensteanbieter die übermittelten Informationen nicht ausgewählt oder verändert haben darf. Da § 8 Abs. 1 Nr. 3 TMG eine Umsetzung der zwingenden Vorgabe aus Art. 12 E-Commerce-Richtlinie darstellt, kann die Vorschrift auch nicht angepasst oder angeglichen werden, um den soeben aufgezeigten Widerspruch aufzulösen.
Da der Entwurf nicht zwischen Gewerbetreibenden und Privatleuten unterscheidet, wäre eine Vorschaltseite mit Rechtstreueerklärung auch dann erforderlich, wenn der Inhaber eines WLAN-Zugangs nur seiner Familie oder Freunden den Netzzugriff über seinen Zugang ermöglichen möchte. Tut er es nicht, müsste er damit rechnen, für Rechtsverletzungen durch Familie und Freunde abgemahnt zu werden.
Technische Argumente:
Handelsübliche Router erlauben in der Regel nicht das Einrichten einer Vorschaltseite. Gewerbetreibende und Privatleute, die anderen einen WLAN-Zugang zur Verfügung stellen wollen, wären damit in der Regel technisch überfordert oder müssten Geld für Fachleute aufwenden, die ihnen bei der Einrichtung einer Vorschaltseite helfen.
Häufig führt die Vorschaltseite zu Inkompatibilitäten auf mobilen Endgeräten. Beispielsweise ist es mit einem iPhone häufig unmöglich, die Vorschaltseite von Anbietern wie der hotsplots GmbH zu „überwinden“. Der Netzzugang scheitert in diesen Fällen schlicht an der Existenz der Vorschaltseite.
Argumente zu Effektivität und Akzeptanz:
Die digitale Entwicklung im Bereich mobiler Netzzugänge wird insbesondere durch umständliche Anmeldeprozeduren bei der WLAN-Nutzung gebremst. Laut einer Umfrage des Branchenverbands BITKOM hält mehr als ein Drittel (35%) der Nutzerinnen und Nutzer die Einwahl in öffentliche WLAN-Hotspots für zu kompliziert.
Wer in einer Rechtstreueerklärung ein wirksames Mittel zur „Nutzerdisziplinierung“ erblickt, muss auch die Altersabfrage bei Streamingportalen mit pornographischem Material für eine effektive Maßnahme des Jugendschutzes und das „Wegklicken“ von allgemeinen Geschäftsbedingungen bei Social-Media-Plattformen für eine taugliche Vorkehrung des Verbraucherschutzes halten. Tatsächlich ist sie als Hürde für die Begehung von Rechtsverletzungen wirkungslos und würde auch nicht zur besseren Verfolgbarkeit eventueller Delikte beitragen.
Argumente zur Datengrundlage:
Die Befürworter einer Rechtstreueerklärung tragen eine Darlegungs- und Beweislast hinsichtlich der Notwendigkeit einer solchen Erklärung. Sie sollten deshalb im Mindesten belastbare Zahlen zu den angeblichen Rechtsverletzungen über anonyme Netzzugänge beibringen. Dies gilt umso mehr, da bei den Modellversuchen mit offenen Hotspots von Kabel Deutschland/mabb oder Vodafone keinerlei Probleme mit Rechtsverletzungen durch Nutzerinnen und Nutzer festzustellen waren. Es liegen also sogar konkrete Indizien dafür vor, dass die Befürchtungen völlig unbegründet sind.
Den Bedenken gegen einen Anstieg von Rechtsverletzungen über anonyme Netzzugänge könnte sehr viel besser mit einer gesetzgeberischen Evaluation nach Ablauf von 2 Jahren begegnet werden. Dies hätte den Vorteil, dass zunächst einmal Chancen für Wirtschaft und Zivilgesellschaft durch genuin offene Netzzugänge entstehen könnten und das Risiko von Rechtsverletzungen zugleich überschaubar und beherrschbar bliebe. Zudem würde diese Lösung dazu führen, dass neben den Erkenntnissen aus dem Modellversuch von Kabel Deutschland und der Medienanstalt Berlin-Brandenburg endlich weitere konkrete Daten zur Frage von Rechtsverletzungen über offene WLAN-Zugänge vorlägen. Bisher gibt es lediglich um Befürchtungen, die einer belastbaren Faktengrundlage entbehren. | {
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Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred said Tuesday it's too early to be worried about results of fan voting for next month's All-Star Game but noted his office is open for change if the system proves flawed.
The latest updated voting totals in the American League, released Monday, have eight players from the Kansas City Royals in line to start the July 14 game in Cincinnati. The NL voting totals, released Tuesday, have Nori Aoki of the San Francisco Giants third among outfielders, ahead of home run and RBIs leader Giancarlo Stanton of the Miami Marlins. Aoki was a member of the Royals last season.
"We have 16 days left. Lots of years we've worried about lots of things in respect to fan voting but in general over time fans have done a pretty good job, so we'll see how it all turns out," Manfred said at Fenway Park, where he attended Tuesday's game between the Atlanta Braves and Boston Red Sox. "What I would say is I hope over time that what people come to think about the commissioner's office is when we have a situation such as this -- this is one example -- that we are responsive and open to change if in fact it appears we get a result that is not consistent with the goals of the system that is currently in place."
The debate over just how much say the fans should have has increased in recent weeks with Royals players dominating the balloting. If eight players get voted in, that would be a record for one team.
Eight Royals In Line To Start for AL Fans might vote eight Royals into the All-Star Game. If manager Ned Yost picks just one more player from his team, Kansas City would tie a record for the game.
Most players from one team in ASG Team All-Stars Yankees, 1958 9 White Sox, 1954 9 Yankees, 1947 9 Yankees, 1942 9 Yankees, 1939 9 -- Elias Sports Bureau
Los Angeles Angels outfielder Mike Trout would be the only non-Royals player to start for the AL team if current voting totals hold. Among the Royals in line to crack the lineup at Great American Ball Park: second baseman Omar Infante, shortstop Alcides Escobar, designated hitter Kendrys Morales and outfielder Lorenzo Cain.
Voting runs through July 2.
Kansas City manager Ned Yost said earlier this week that the solution is simple: If fans don't like the results, get out there and vote.
"There's nothing wrong," Yost told USA Today Sports. "Vote! The votes are the votes. If you don't like it, go out there and vote. Our fans have gotten out and voted. Does seven starters surprise you? Yeah. But once you sit back and think about it, it's really not that surprising."
Also Tuesday, in speaking about ballpark safety, Manfred said management can order expanded netting for protection for fans without bargaining over the matter with the players' association.
A fan at Fenway Park was injured and hospitalized after she was struck by a broken bat in seats along the third-base line on June 5. MLB is studying whether netting should be expanded.
Information from ESPNBoston.com's Gordon Edes and The Associated Press was used in this report. | {
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A man accused of kicking a pregnant Muslim woman in the stomach in a “devastating” racist attack has failed to appear in court.
An arrest warrant has been issued for David Gallacher after he allegedly assaulted Samsam Haji-Ali, 34, who later had a miscarriage and lost unborn twins, on August 6 last year.
He is also accused of attacking the woman's husband, Abdullah Sulaiman, 40, near a Co-op store near Milton Keynes.
The 37-year-old, of no fixed abode, failed to attend his first court appearance on Tuesday, despite it being adjourned from the morning until the afternoon to give him time to arrive.
A warrant not backed for bail was issued for Gallacher by chair of the bench David Tyler.
Last August, he is alleged to have approached Ms Haji-Ali launched a tirade of racist abuse at her before following her to her vehicle.
When there, it is claimed he kicked her to the ground and hit her partner over the head, leaving him with injuries.
During his arrest on September 14 in Bletchley, he allegedly assaulted three police officers.
He is charged with one count of assault causing actual bodily harm, one count of assault, two counts of racially aggravated assault and three counts of assaulting a police officer.
In an appeal following the attack, PC Richard Armitage said: “This racially aggravated assault had absolutely devastating consequences for the victim, who lost her baby as a result of the attack."
Additional reporting by the Press Association | {
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Collins’s resignation highlights what many see as a stubborn resistance to fully address the clergy abuse crisis four years into Francis’ papacy and more than 15 years after it exploded in Boston.
The departure of Marie Collins puts pressure on Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley — the archbishop of Boston and a new member of a Vatican department handling the abuse crisis — to marshal support for the commission inside the church’s fractious power structure.
The only abuse survivor on Pope Francis’ commission to address the clergy sexual abuse crisis resigned Wednesday, citing a “shameful” lack of cooperation from some within the Vatican bureaucracy.
“Now, they have a mess on their hands,” said Nicholas Cafardi, dean emeritus of the Duquesne University School of Law and an original member of the US Catholic bishops’ National Review Board for the Protection of Children and Youth.
Collins, he said, “gave credibility to that commission and [her resignation] is a substantial blow to that credibility. They need to do something quickly to restore credibility, otherwise this will be seen as another type of Vatican window dressing.” He said he had hoped the commission would offer universal church policies for preventing and dealing with clergy abuse.
Collins, an Irish woman who suffered abuse by a priest during a hospital stay as a child, is a widely respected and blunt-spoken voice in the survivor community. She said in a statement that the commission’s work has been hampered by “constant setbacks” that were “directly due to the resistance by some members of the Vatican Curia to the work of the commission.”
She pointed in particular to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the department O’Malley recently joined, which blocked implementation of one of the abuse panel’s major recommendations. The commission had suggested establishing a tribunal to get rid of bishops who failed to protect children.
Survivors’ groups and other critics have been skeptical from the outset of the commission’s ability to effect change because it is an advisory panel with no authority to make rules.
The “last straw,” Collins said in a lengthy statement to the National Catholic Reporter, was the recent discovery that church functionaries had not followed “one of the simplest” recommendations by the commission: that the Vatican respond to every letter sent by a survivor.
“I find it impossible to listen to public statements about the deep concern in the church for the care of those whose lives have been blighted by abuse, yet to watch privately as a congregation in the Vatican refuses to even acknowledge their letters!” Collins said. “It is a reflection of how this whole abuse crisis in the church has been handled: with fine words in public and contrary actions behind closed doors.”
Collins resigned as of March 1 — Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent, a season of repentance and deep reflection for Catholics.
A spokesman for O’Malley said he was unavailable for comment Wednesday. In a statement published by the Vatican, the cardinal said he’d expressed to Collins his “most sincere thanks for the extraordinary contributions she has made as a founding member” of the group.
“We will certainly listen carefully to all that Marie wishes to share with us about her concerns and we will greatly miss her important contributions,” he said.
Thomas Groome, director of the Church in the 21st Century Center at Boston College, noted other efforts by Francis to make change have met with “obstinate resistance” within the Vatican, including efforts to reform church financial practices.
He said that, in resigning, Collins’s “intention is obviously trying to shock people into more resolute action.”
The frustration Collins felt, Duquesne’s Cafardi said, illustrates that the pope doesn’t have full control of the sprawling Vatican bureaucracy.
“The view the people have of the Catholic Church is that it’s some kind of monolith,” he said. “It’s more like hundreds of little kingdoms, and people are very jealous of protecting their turf.”
Although she did not mention it in her statements, Collins in recent days expressed dismay that the pope had quietly overruled Vatican decisions and extended mercy to a handful of abusive priests who had asked for clemency. The Associated Press reported Sunday about the pope’s intervention and said some of those given lighter punishment — a lifetime of prayer and penance instead of dismissal from the clerical state — had connections.
“While mercy is important, justice for all parties is equally important,” Collins told the AP in an e-mail. “If there is seen to be any weakness about proper penalties, then it might well send the wrong message to those who would abuse.”
Kurt Martens, a professor of canon law at the Catholic University of America, said Collins’s resignation announcement coming so soon after those reports, “doesn’t reflect well on Pope Francis.”
He said the whole episode cast doubt on whether the global church, and cultures in which the church exists around the world, have reached consensus on the gravity of child abuse. “I think the worst is still to come,” he said, referring to the handling of the crisis.
Collins said in her statement to the National Catholic Reporter that she was frustrated by the lack of resources and authority given to the panel.
She noted that the commission’s recommendation for a dedicated permanent tribunal to hold bishops accountable was never implemented because of concerns from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith about the tribunal’s “unspecified ‘legal’ difficulties.” Bishops played a central role in the abuse crisis by shuffling around abusive priests and sheltering them from civil authorities.
Because of the objections to the permanent tribunal, Francis instead issued guidance clarifying the Vatican’s existing procedures for jettisoning bad bishops and ordered prelates to follow those rules. Collins said in her statement Wednesday it was “impossible to know” whether that was happening.
Krysten Winter-Green, a commission member from New Zealand who lives in the United States and who works as a forensic psychologist providing consultation to religious institutions, said many Vatican prelates support the commission’s work, but “there is a tremendous degree of frustration” involved with working within the Vatican bureaucracy.
She said she thought the problems had more to do with turf battles than ideological or theological disagreements, though she said it was difficult to be sure.
Winter-Green, who has worked with O’Malley in Massachusetts and the US Virgin Islands over the last 30 years, said she hoped the cardinal would improve that dynamic as a member of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
“If anybody can open up channels of communication, he can,” she said.
The other abuse survivor on the now 16-member commission, Peter Saunders, was forced to take a leave of absence a year ago after criticizing the slow pace of progress at the Vatican and the scope of the commission’s mandate.
With no survivors actively serving on the panel, Winter-Green said the commission needs to take a hard look at its composition.
Voice of the Faithful, a lay Catholic group formed in response to the clergy abuse scandal, called Collins “a stalwart force against the church’s intransigence in addressing clerical sex abuse.”
“The church,” the group said in a statement, “has lost a devoted servant in its effort to rid itself of scandal and protect its children in the future.”
Material from the Associated Press was used in this report. Lisa Wangsness can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @wangsness. | {
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To begin with, there were seven Green Lantern Corps, each representing a colour of the Emotional Electromagnetic Spectrum. The further from the center of the emotional spectrum, the greater the influence a powered light has over its bearer.
Later on three other Corps were discovered, which were White, Black and Ultraviolet.
The Maltusians, the oldest known race in existence of DC Universe, were the first to discover and harness the power of Emotional Spectrum, which is an energy field that is fuelled by the emotions of all sentient beings. Their successors were eventually able to harness the power of emotions of different colours, and create the Lantern Corps DC readers are familiar with today.
All members of the Corps have Power Rings which helps them channel their emotions as different colours of light. This grants the bearers of these rings immense powers like flight, blasting energy beams, creating physical projections of anything they can imagine, and so on. The power of the Lantern Corps are only limited by their emotions which makes them one of the strongest forces in the universe.
But how did each Corps come into being? With all boasting their own complex history, it's time to dive into the stories of how all were created, from Green through to Ultraviolet... | {
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The last month has seen the release of detailed plans for the next phase of the 15th and High project – designs were unveiled for WOSU’s new headquarters and for a series of new buildings on the east side of North High Street, between 14th and 16th avenues.
Today, plans for the west side of High Street took center stage. Keith Myers, Vice President of Planning and Real Estate at Ohio State University, presented new renderings and site plans for the $160 million Arts District.
The main elements of the district are a new Department of Theatre building and an expanded School of Music facility. The Drake Performance and Event Center, which overlooks the Olentangy River and currently holds the Department of Theatre, is likely headed for demolition as part of the ongoing Cannon Drive relocation.
Also included in the plan is a redesigned Annie and John Glenn Avenue, which will connect High Street to College Road and serve as a gateway to the new district.
The presentation was intended to provide an update on both the Arts District and the 15th and High projects to the Master Planning and Facilities Committee of the OSU Board of Trustees.
Materials prepared for the meeting state that construction of the Arts District is scheduled to start in May of 2019 and conclude by August of 2021. The architect of record is DLR Group. | {
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SAN DIEGO (KGTV) -- Deputies credited hikers for calling 911, saving a man who had fallen through the ice at Big Laguna Lake Sunday morning.
The San Diego County Sheriff’s Department received a call around 11:45 about a man who trapped in the lake after falling through ice.
According to the department, the man, who is in his 60s, tried to ski on the ice, but fell in because the ice was too thin.
A helicopter was able to quickly descend on the lake, lowering a flotation device down to the man.
“He knew he didn’t have much more in him. He knew he had to get out of that water. He didn’t have much time,” Deputy Bill Liniewicz said.
RELATED: Man dies on Lincoln Park sidewalk, police say
Cal Fire and San Diego Sheriff’s Department all worked together on the rescue.
Video from the scene shows a helicopter lowering a rescue device down to the man trapped in the water.
Cal Fire took to social media following the incident to warn of the dangers near bodies of water as people swarm to see the recent snow that fell on the San Diego County mountains.
“If visiting the snow please remember to stay away from all bodies of water and stay on designated trails,” the agency said.
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Editor’s Note: We’ve been curious about Ironman for some time now. We’d seen reliable intel that more guys than ever are adding it to their bucket lists, training hard in excess of a year for one very brutal day of swimming, biking, running, dehydration, and hyponatremia (body’s lack of sodium). It sounds like one hell of a way to spend what little free time men have nowadays. So, we asked GP’s resident Braveheart, Mr. Jeremy Berger to cancel his plans for a leisurely summer and with the help of our friends at Timex, got him signed up for Ironman Louisville. Be sure to check in with us every two weeks between now and the end of August for a new chapter of the Gear Patrol original summer series, Road to Ironman.
Read Jeremy’s first dispatch and introduction to the series after the jump.
Road to Ironman
Part 1: Introduction | Part 2: Conversation with Phillip Bauman, MD | Part 3: Swim, Bike, Run, Eat | Part 4: Training with a USA Triathlon Amateur Athlete of the Year
Road to Ironman: Part I
I’ve got this lump on my left big toe, just north and east of the nail. Some kind of blister beneath a callus. It’s becoming dark and a little painful. I’ll cut in there with my utility knife — no problem — and then hit it with some alcohol and bacitracin and be out running again tomorrow. Thank goodness it isn’t the toenail, you know? I don’t know how to deal with the toenail. I’d have to go to the doctor… oh, and I don’t have good insurance.
Training for Ironman is largely self-indulgent, in part because it’s an individual sport, doubly so because the athlete is so tuned in to his body, his strengths, aches, his response to nutrition and sleep, and so on. This means I spend a lot of time running my mouth about training to people who are on the cusp, interest-wise; it was a major event the other day when I swam, ran, and then had a violent stomach ache — probably because I drank a bunch of milk that morning — but this is scarcely interesting to anyone who doesn’t love me unconditionally. After today, you’ll hear little about things like my gastrointestinal issues or foot problems.
The minor revelation here is that intense training of any kind requires focus and presence of mind — living in the moment, so to speak. This series isn’t about all that, however — at least not directly.
As a reminder, Ironman is an is an ultra-distance triathlon consisting of a 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike ride, and 26.2 mile run. It sounds like one hell of a slog and your author has been spending a little part of each day sitting quietly, terrified. It feels good to get that off my chest. The good news is I’m a competent athlete: At the beginning of this training period I could comfortably run a half marathon and bike 30 or 40 miles on a mountain bike. The one big obstacle is that I have an average man’s relationship with the water. In a pinch, most of us can get ourselves to land, but we don’t really swim. Fortunately, I have a friend in my corner who’s as pretty as a mermaid and nearly as aquatically gifted.
Welcome to our latest project: Three very intense months of training for Ironman Louisville. Twice per month, over the next several months you can expect highly focused vignettes of Ironman training as one regular guy sees it, interviewing experts and covering topics like foot and knee health, time trial bikes, open-water swimming, and of course, lots of gear and other surprises along the way.
It’s going to be a killer summer. Seriously.
If you have any feedback, words of support, or other sage words of advice, be sure write to Jeremy jberger @ gearpatrol . com.
The Courses
Road to Ironman
Road to Ironman
Part 1: Introduction | Part 2: Conversation with Phillip Bauman, MD | Part 3: Swim, Bike, Run, Eat | Part 4: Training with a USA Triathlon Amateur Athlete of the Year
This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io | {
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MoveOn.org, a national progressive public policy advocacy group, will fund two political action committees in Vermont to support Democratic candidate for governor, Christine Hallquist.
The organization has yet to determine when or how much it will spend on Hallquist’s bid, according to Lisa Changadveja, MoveOn’s state and local elections director. She said Thursday some of the money raised will be used to pay for digital and social media advertising on Hallquist’s behalf.
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A document filed with the Secretary of State’s office Wednesday showed MoveOn has opened a coordinated PAC. Under Vermont law, contributions to this type of PAC are limited to $4,080, according to Changadveja. At the same time, MoveOn will be able to consult with the campaign on how the money is spent, though it says this isn’t a priority.
“We don’t actually plan on having much conversation with the campaign,” Changadveja said.
MoveOn also plans to open an independent expenditure PAC — a fund for which there are no financial limits, but coordination on spending with campaigns is barred, she said.
The money from MoveOn would likely be the first PAC dollars spent on the Hallquist campaign, but not in this year’s governor’s race.
The Republican Governors Association, has already waded into Vermont’s gubernatorial race, spending more than $200,000 on Gov. Phil Scott’s campaign, largely in support of political advertising efforts.
Though Hallquist campaign has sworn off corporate campaign donations, Hallquist’s campaign has never said it would reject support from PACs.
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“I honestly don’t know what it’ll mean money-wise, but it’s a great sign that MoveOn knows that the gov’s race is competitive and we thank their members for the support,” Cameron Russell, Hallquist’s campaign manager said in a text message.
Changadveja noted that MoveOn itself doesn’t accept corporate contributions. The organization spends on progressive races across the country, and has raised a total of nearly $17 million this year.
Changadveja added that in addition to financial support, MoveOn will be mobilizing its members, 21,000 of whom live in Vermont, to campaign for Hallquist.
Changadveja said MoveOn is offering Hallquist financial backing because she’s the “clear progressive in the race.” She mentioned Hallquist’s support for raising the minimum wage and implementing a single payer health care system. An internal poll of Vermont’s MoveOn members showed that 92 percent of them support Hallquist, she added.
Hallquist is the first openly transgender candidate to run for governor, and Changadveja said this also was a factor in the organization’s decision.
“That’s pretty historic and transformative and we want to be there to help,” she said.
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The Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue is a yearly nod to the leggy, thin supermodels of the moment, but this year, the magazine is straying from its typical formula by featuring plus-size models.
Plus-size model Denise Bidot appeared in an ad in Sports Illustrated‘s Swimsuit issue, stretch marks and all. (Photo: Getty Images)
While it’s business as usual on the outside — SI veteran and self-proclaimed curvy girl Kate Upton graces all three covers — the inside pages are a groundbreaking push for body diversity. First, in an advertisement for plus-size clothing company Lane Bryant, model Denise Bidot, 30, poses in a bikini from the brand’s Cacique Swim line, bearing stretch marks on her stomach and an IDGAF look on her face.
Denise Bidot for Lane Bryant in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue. (Photo: Lane Bryant)
“It’s amazing to be a part of the change that’s helping women see once and for all that nobody is perfect,” Bidot wrote about her unretouched ad on Instagram. “We can still be beautiful in spite of our imperfections. It’s time we celebrate each other and learn to love the skin we are in.”
Plus-size model Ashley Graham (who currently graces Vogue’s March cover) stars in a campaign for Swimsuits for All that’s also on the inside pages of the SI issue. The ad shows Graham and a group of nonmodel pals, burning up the town of San Juan, Puerto Rico.
Plus-size model Ashley Graham, center. (Photo: Instagram/swimsuitsforall)
The Lane Bryant ad is somewhat of an encore for the company. Back in December, the company debuted the Escape Collection, in which Bidot wore a nautical-themed bikini, proudly revealing stretch marks on her stomach. While body-positive ads were nothing new for Lane Bryant, the fact that Bidot’s stomach wasn’t digitally retouched sent shock waves through social media, with many commending Lane Bryant for showcasing “real beauty.”
Denise Bidot, pictured not retouched — just beautiful — in a Lane Bryant ad in December. (Photo: Lane Bryant)
Bidot even weighed in then, writing on Instagram, “Loving this new image and how real it is. Thank you @lanebryant for loving my body, stretch marks and all.”
She also told Yahoo Style at the time, “As a model I do not have say over whether or not images are retouched or kept authentic. It was refreshing when the images launched, and I was really excited to see they did not remove my stretch marks or who I am and let me be free in my body. I think the consumers really appreciated that.”
Story continues
In 2015, Bidot also starred in a Swimsuits for All campaign that ran a behind-the-scenes video of the model without digital alteration. For the line’s newest campaign, featured in the current Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue, size-16 beauty Graham rocks her own colorful designs alongside women of varying ages and body types.
Graham and friends. (Photo: Instagram/swimsuitsforall)
Cheers to body-positive swimsuit models!
Read More:
Ashley Graham Is Breaking Gender Barriers and Promoting Body Positivity in V Magazine
Kate Upton’s Promoting Her Bikini Cover in a Very Prim Dress
Ashley Graham Brings Diversity to the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue
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President Donald Trump weighed in on Monday evening about the viral video that showed an encounter between a Native American man and a Catholic high school student in Washington D.C. last weekend.
Looking like Nick Sandman & Covington Catholic students were treated unfairly with early judgements proving out to be false - smeared by media. Not good, but making big comeback! “New footage shows that media was wrong about teen’s encounter with Native American” @TuckerCarlson — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 22, 2019
Trump’s comments were posted on Twitter amid the ongoing furor over the encounter between Nick Sandmann, a junior at a Kentucky Catholic school, and a Native American man named Nathan Phillips. Sandmann was recorded staring down Phillips near the Lincoln Memorial in Washington after attending an anti-abortion rally.
Many described the student’s expression as an example of racism. Phillips said he felt intimidated after he was swarmed by the group of students. He later clarified in interviews that he chose to approach the teenagers in an attempt to diffuse a conflict between the students and a group of men who identified themselves as Black Hebrew Israelites.
“It was getting ugly, and I was thinking: ‘I’ve got to find myself an exit out of this situation and finish my song at the Lincoln Memorial,’” Phillips told The Washington Post after the incident. “I started going that way, and that guy in the hat stood in my way, and we were at an impasse. He just blocked my way and wouldn’t allow me to retreat.”
Witnesses at the scene also described hearing the students, many of whom were wearing “Make America Great Again” hats, chanting “Build the wall!” Others said the teens were mocking Phillips and his companions with a tomahawk-chop gesture.
Sandmann later claimed that he was trying to defuse the situation when he stood in front of Phillips and that he “said a silent prayer that the situation would not get out of hand.”
“I never interacted with this protestor. I did not speak to him. I did not make any hand gestures or other aggressive moves,” Sandmann wrote in a statement released through a public relations firm. “To be honest, I was startled and confused as to why he had approached me.
Trump on Tuesday morning doubled down on his comments after his favorite cable news show “Fox & Friends” devoted extensive air time to the story. The president called Sandmann and his classmates “symbols of Fake News and how evil it can be.”
Nick Sandmann and the students of Covington have become symbols of Fake News and how evil it can be. They have captivated the attention of the world, and I know they will use it for the good - maybe even to bring people together. It started off unpleasant, but can end in a dream! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 22, 2019
This article has been updated to include Trump’s tweet. | {
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SPOTLIGHT Theunis de Bruyn, spending his 'short time' on Earth, just right Tristan Holme Share Tweet
Not only is it a case of when, rather than if, he will play Test cricket, but there is a growing expectation that he will one day captain South Africa. ©Getty
It is now a little more than three years since Theunis de Bruyn made the decision that many informed commentators expect to change the course of the South African cricket team in years to come.
It was late in 2013, and de Bruyn found himself short of opportunities - a familiar position for young cricketers in South Africa. An Under-19 World Cup participant the year before, the batsman was unable to find a place even in the provincial setup. Word on the ground was that racial quotas would be introduced in domestic cricket, which would make opportunities for a white player like de Bruyn even rarer.
As a B.Com Accounting student at the University of Pretoria, de Bruyn had two options: pursue cricket, or become a Chartered Accountant. Only one of those options offered security, but it wasn't the one that de Bruyn chose.
"I was enjoying my degree, and I had to think about it," he says. "Because this is the difficult choice - to play cricket. I mean you get one opportunity and you make a mistake, you're out. You're competing in a big pool of players. But I thought to myself: 'You've got 15 years. You can be on TV, you can influence more people. If it happens that you get the opportunity, you should go big.'"
Since making the decision, de Bruyn has done just that. In 2014 he led his university to the Red Bull Campus Cricket World title in England. One month later, with the introduction of quotas confirmed and the door to domestic cricket looking shut and bolted, de Bruyn crowbarred it open. Playing against a Protea-laden Titans side in a couple of pre-season warm-ups, he performed so well that coach Rob Walter stuck him straight into his team for the season opener.
Having played just a handful of three-day games for his province, Northerns, de Bruyn had expected that he would need to work his way through those semi-professional ranks first. Instead his List A debut came at franchise level in a televised game, and immediately he issued notice of his abilities. Batting at No. 3, he arrived at the crease in just the second over and scored 108 from 90 balls. His fourth innings yielded 60, and in his fifth he scored an unbeaten 152 from 144 balls. The Titans went on to win the competition later in the season, with de Bruyn their top run-scorer.
Before that trophy landed, de Bruyn had already made his mark in the four-day game. After hitting an unbeaten double-century in South Africa A's first unofficial Test against England A , he followed it up with 161 at close to a run a ball in the second. Up in the dressing room, the Andy Flower-led England Lions think-tank were scratching their heads on how to get de Bruyn out, while out on the field there was general disbelief among an attack that included Mark Wood, Liam Plunkett and Boyd Rankin.
"I think it was just after Tea and I was on a hundred again in the second match, and Wood just said, 'Jeez, can you please just stop batting? We've had enough of you now. We don't want to bowl any more.' It was just one of those stages, like Virat Kohli in the IPL [last year]. You just get into those great times as a batter. It doesn't happen all the time."
That was something de Bruyn discovered in his second season. After becoming the third fastest South African batsman to score 1,000 first-class runs, his second campaign was hampered by a badly-timed injury, after which he struggled to recover his place in the Titans side. The silver lining was a loan to the Knights, who were so impressed by his presence that they asked him to return the following season as captain. De Bruyn accepted and this season, at the age of 24, he led an unfancied and unfashionable team to their first trophy in nine years, becoming the second youngest captain after Hashim Amla to win the title in the franchise era.
Which is why de Bruyn's decision to follow the cricket dream could yet change the course of the South African team in years to come. Not only is it a case of when, rather than if, he will play Test cricket, but there is a growing expectation that he will one day captain South Africa.
*****
"A lot of things need to change in our country - not just cricket. Our country is sitting in the balance; which way is it going to go? Is it going to go bad or is it going to go great? If it goes great then in 20 years' time we're going to dominate sport again - maybe not even that long because the talent is still here." ***
Numbers are one thing to look at whilst evaluating the potential of a young cricketer. Attitude and aptitude are others. Your average 24-year-old cricketer on the fringes of the national side can offer a couple of mumbled lines about 'basics', 'consistency' and 'good areas'. De Bruyn is not like that.
The first time we speak is in Harare midway through 2016, 45 minutes after South Africa A have been held to a draw by their Zimbabwean counterparts. It is a casual environment, but de Bruyn locks in with unblinking eyes and an hour of intense conversation flies by. Discussion of his career naturally flows into thoughts on South African cricket and the country at large. After all with South Africa's history, sport and politics are intertwined - most notably through the topic of transformation.
"We can have a very long discussion about this," de Bruyn notes at one point, "but a lot of things need to change in our country - not just cricket. Our country is sitting in the balance; which way is it going to go? Is it going to go bad or is it going to go great? If it goes great then in 20 years' time we're going to dominate sport again - maybe not even that long because the talent is still here. The people are frustrated with the country and they leave the country but as soon as things get better, everyone is going to come back. That I can promise you, because we have a great country."
De Bruyn is clearly someone who thinks about things. He says that, as is so often the case in Afrikaans culture, he discusses them at length with the older generation. That means he is well aware that just a generation ago, it was rare to find Afrikaaners in the top levels of cricket. "One of our family friends was the first guy to make the Northerns team as an Afrikaans boy - Joubert Strydom. He's 54 now. In those days it was just the English guys that played cricket. My dad was more of a rugby-playing man but he had a passion for cricket. None of them really played the game that well but they loved it. They'd be up at 2am to watch a Test series in Australia, and that's how I got into it as well. I played a lot of sports but this was my passion."
De Bruyn went to Menlopark, an Afrikaans high school in Pretoria. Although well known, it boasts just a fraction of the national talent produced by its rival, Afrikaans Boys High School, where AB de Villiers, Faf du Plessis, Jacques Rudolph and a host of Springbok rugby players went. De Bruyn worked hard at his cricket in those years and molded a batting technique that leans towards positivity - his first-class strike rate is 66.5.
"I'm a fiery person in any case," he explains. "I may look lazy, but inside I'm fiery. So I fight fire with fire if I have to. But my technique is also getting into strong positions and being aggressive. You can be aggressive blocking or leaving as well, just by showing that you are present and up for the fight. Matthew Hayden, Kevin Pietersen... those kinds of guys come to mind when I think of the sort of presence I would like to have. When a bowler knows that if he gets it slightly wrong, it's runs."
In 2010, de Bruyn was named player of the tournament at the national under-17 week, and two years later he was part of the South African Under-19 team that reached the World Cup semi-finals. De Kock was also part of that team, but was way ahead, having quit school early to focus on his cricket. The wicketkeeper made his first-class debut at the age of just 17, and four months after the Under-19 World Cup he was making his Twenty20 debut for South Africa.
De Bruyn was not so fortunate. Although he had a good Under-19 tournament, a hip operation soon after put him out of action for nine months. When he returned, it took almost a year to get a game for Northerns. "There wouldn't have been that gap if it weren't for the fact that there aren't enough opportunities for young guys to get that chance at a young age in our country," he says. "Obviously when you're young you want things quickly so it was tough for me and I had to make choices. But things work out - I became a captain of a franchise at 23."
As frustrating as the time spent waiting may have been, the stories of Quinton de Kock and de Bruyn show that white talent in South Africa can still find a way through a domestic system that is set up to try and reverse the racial wrongs of the past. But they need to be exceptional talents who take every small opportunity that comes their way. De Bruyn's early centuries for the Titans one-day side earned him a place in their four-day team - even if it was filling in as opener, a position the Titans had struggled with the previous season. A couple of half-centuries there saw him picked for the South Africa A side, and before anyone knew it he had 1,000 first-class runs from just 20 innings.
"But I felt I wanted that responsibility, because maybe that would bring more out of me and it has." ©Getty
While one other player in the modern era, Jean Symes, was quicker than de Bruyn to the mark, 981 of his first 1,000 runs came in semi-professional cricket. De Kock was one innings slower than de Bruyn, but 904 of his runs came in the lower league. By contrast, just 266 of de Bruyn's first 1,000 runs came at the easier level. Of course, such records mean little if they are not sustained, and last season de Bruyn had a quieter time, scoring a less spectacular 602 runs at an average of 38.
"What happened is I had a great season, then I went to India with the A team, which was a tough tour for everyone. I didn't go there in a good state of mind for personal reasons, and I maybe thought it was going to come easily because I was still young and stupid and it had come easily the previous year. It wasn't easy at all, and I came back feeling like I didn't really love cricket any more. India is a tough place and we went to tough places there as well. I like my food and I didn't enjoy the food in India at all, so I lost 11 or 12 kgs in five weeks. It was tough scenes.
"I got back and played the first two games for the Titans and made 20s. I got a rough one in the first game, and played a loose shot in the second. Then I got an injury in that game, and other guys did well in the next three games. When I came back I wasn't in the T20 squad at all, even though I was vice-captain. That was very disruptive for me. I had to make a choice, because I thought I still deserved to be in the team. When I went to the Knights on loan I had to move to a place where I haven't been before for four or five weeks and leave everyone behind, and play against my own team. It was the first time I've been out of my comfort zone. It was hard but it was good as well.
"If I look back at my second season, the mental struggle was probably more with me than the opposition. I actually learnt a lot more in my second season than in my first, because the first season was just instinct. You just played with freedom as a youngster, and then suddenly you did so well that there is actually a lot of expectation to perform - not that I mind that, but you just learn a lot more, I feel, through rough stages than through good stages."
*****
De Bruyn's time at the Knights proved a turning point for both the player and the franchise. Former South Africa spinner Nicky Boje was interim coach at the time, and just starting out in his coaching career. Having seen something in de Bruyn, he asked if he would come and captain a franchise that had been in decline for the better part of a decade, when they effectively became a feeder team to more fashionable franchises. A Bloemfontein boy through and through, Boje wanted to change that. Along with de Bruyn, Marchant de Lange was signed to bolster the attack while David Miller also joined.
De Bruyn's appointment as captain had recently been confirmed when we spoke last year. "Nicky played cricket at the highest level and he knows the game, but he's still hungry and wants to prove himself as a coach, while I want to do so as a captain and player," he said. "That's good, I like starting fresh and having clear goals to achieve. There's a trust bond between us. If you're not open and honest in this environment in our country, it's difficult for players because players are already edgy. There are so many things outside of cricket that influence the change room now, if you're not honest with players and people don't know where they stand, they get very frustrated. Then you've got cliques starting to form, and you don't want that. It's a big challenge."
***
While de Bruyn's 751 runs at an average of 58 and de Lange's 34 wickets at 28 were telling contributions to the Knights' Sunfoil Series success this season, there was also noticeable a noticeable shift in attitude. Where there was previously an unmistakable air of the underdog about them, which told as they fell narrowly short of silverware on a couple of occasions, this time there was a refreshing confidence.
The competition went into the final round with all six teams theoretically still in it, making first-innings runs, when points are gathered in the first 100 overs, crucial. With de Bruyn's 72 at almost a run a ball setting the tone, the Knights scored 435 for nine in their first 100 overs. From there, they just needed to win to claim their first four-day title since 2007/08, when they were still known as the Eagles. They duly went on to crush the Lions by an innings inside three days, with Proteas new boy Duanne Olivier taking six wickets to boost his season tally to a remarkable 52.
When I spoke to de Bruyn a second time, on the eve of his departure for the New Zealand Test series, he played down his contribution somewhat. "Just remember that when I got here, they wanted to change," he said. But his attitude towards captaining also suggested a natural affinity for the role. "It was a risk to take the opportunity because I was throwing myself into deep end - to take on a team that hasn't had success for a long time and you're a young captain, and you've just finished a second season which wasn't as good as you wanted it to be," he reflected.
"But I felt I wanted that responsibility, because maybe that would bring more out of me and it has. Performance-wise, I want to make other people better as well, and make them believe in something. That's more rewarding than scoring a hundred or winning the game. It's creating that environment where guys grow and also be someone when they're done with cricket. Not just a cricket player who focuses on hundreds and five-fors and winning, because it doesn't always happen all the time."
In the long run, de Bruyn sees himself taking his desire to lead into the boardroom. "If you're in control of a big business you have a lot of families to look after so you have a lot of responsibility and there are new challenges all the time," he reasons.
But for the moment, his decision to choose cricket over business means that he will continue to look for greater responsibility on the field. "That's actually the main reason I play the game, to influence people. Whether it's the public or my players or teammates or opposition, to make an impact. We've got such a short time on earth, we've got to spend it right, I feel."
© Cricbuzz | {
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One of the most fundamental barriers to the widespread adoption of renewable energy has been the inconvenient truth of planetary rotation. Solar power has advanced enormously over the past few decades but panel efficiency and solar concentration plants are of limited assistance when Apollo is busy elsewhere on the Earth. Now, researchers think they’ve found a partial solution to that problem by combining the known properties of one substance with everyone’s favorite technological advance: carbon nanotubes.
One of the problems with electrical power generation is that we’re much better at generating electricity than we are at storing it. This makes it difficult to rely solely on renewable sources for electricity; power generation can vary substantially in any given area depending on prevailing weather conditions at the time. One solution to the problem is to build out 2-3x the capacity needed to provide average power consumption, but the capital costs associated with doing so are extremely high and there are only so many ideal spots to stick a giant solar concentration facility in any case.
What’s needed is a simple method of converting energy gathered during the day into a resource that can be tapped at night — and Timothy Kucharski, a post-doc at MIT and Harvard, thinks his team has found it.
Of photoswitches and nanotubes
Kucharski’s work is based on the well-known properties of azobenzenes. These are molecules, dubbed photoswitches, that have one particular molecular configuration by default but, when struck by certain frequencies of ultraviolet light, assume a new configuration, as shown below.
When the molecule “relaxes” from its excited state to its base state it releases about 50KJ/mol-1 of energy. The research team’s goal was to see if packing a solution with carbon nanotubes in an appropriate configuration could significantly increase the amount of energy stored. One of the more interesting findings of the team, in fact, was that while they were unable to hit the necessary density of azobenzene molecules, adding carbon nanotubes drastically increased the overall efficiency. The carbon nanotube’s form chains to which the azobenzene molecules can attach, with multiple nanotubes locking together. The end result was that instead of a 30% energy density increase, the researchers saw a greater-than 200% increase — from 50KJ/mol-1 to 120KJ/mol-1.
In the grand scheme of things, 120KJ/mol-1 isn’t a great deal of energy, but it hints at broader applications if the CNT density can be scaled up further. If the research team had hit their original density goals, the final stored power could be as much as double the amount achieved today. Kucharski claimed that the azobenzene could be stored in liquid form and charged in a closed-loop gravity-fed system. “It would also enable charging by flowing the material from a storage tank through a window or clear tube exposed to the sun and then to another storage tank, where the material would remain until it’s needed,” Kucharski said in an email. “That way one could stockpile the charged material for use when the sun’s not shining.”
The goal would be to create a short-term thermal battery that could be used to power a stove or other heat sources during the night after charging all day. A gravity system would be simple, with few moving parts. The long-term goal is to create a system that could be used to provide thermal power for entire buildings and to further increase efficiency.
While it’s not a full-scale solar battery, discoveries like this could make solar power far more useful in developing nations, which still rely primarily on wood or peat for cooking fuel. | {
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Since 1989, widely circulating statistics on gay teen suicide in the United States have acted as catalysts for institutional reforms, scientific research, and the creation of an identity category “gay youth.” While one figure has been replicated scientifically, these numbers originated not from a scientific research study but as risk estimates developed by a social worker and published in a government document. Many people within the public took up these original numbers, attributing their author the status of scientific researcher. In effect, the numbers became “black boxed,” often traveling without citation. Drawing on Ian Hacking’s “dynamic nominalist” perspective, this article utilizes interviews with the author of these statistics and other key claimants, along with textual analysis, to trace the origins, uptake, and effects of these figures. While making vital policy contributions, the numbers have led to some ironic consequences including the fostering of gay youth identification with suicide as a potential correlate of their identity and the potential antigay redeployment of decontextualized numbers. They have also led to a reaction in the form of “resilience” narratives.
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We want to keep the Clean Water Act working for the Great Lakes. But the shipping industry wants an exemption for ballast water, even though ballast water is the primary source of ecosystem-destroying invasive species like quagga mussels and bloody red shrimp.
One of the industry’s often-repeated talking points goes a little like this:
What are you so worked up about? We don’t need the Clean Water Act. Since we’ve started treating ballast water by saltwater flushing, we haven’t found any new invasive species in the Great Lakes.
Not anymore. EPA just found a new non-native species in Lake Erie. That species, Brachionus leydigii, is a zooplankton usually found in Europe, Asia, and Australia. And last November, EPA announced that it had found Thermocyclops crassus, another non-native zooplankton, in Lake Erie. All signs point to the shipping industry as the likely source.
The discovery of new non-native species tells us that what we’re doing now is not enough for the Great Lakes. Moving forward, we need the Clean Water Act, not an exemption for special interests, so that states and the federal government can protect sensitive ecosystems from new invasive species before it’s too late. | {
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A man who won £70,000 libel damages from The Sun after the paper accused him of being a paedophile has been jailed for life – for being a paedophile.
In March 2011 the paper reported that Gibbs, 65, fled to Thailand “to prey on teenagers for sex” before coming back to the UK.
In November that year it was announced that The Sun would be paying damages after the High Court heard how Gibbs felt “his life had been put in danger” by the allegations against him.
In January 2012, The Sun issued an apology saying: “We wrongly reported that George Gibbs was deported from Thailand for child sex offences as part of an international investigation. We sincerely apologise to him for this error and the distress caused.”
But he was last week convicted of raping and grooming boys as young as nine over an eight-year period.
Under the headline, “We told you”, The Sun reported Judge Denis Watson, on announcing Gibbs’ sentence of at least ten years, as saying: “This would likely not have happened without the press interest in your time in Thailand.
“You pose a risk to members of the public and only a life sentence can protect them.” | {
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Turns out that the ad people at CNN concurred. Donald Trump Jr. complained in a tweet that the network had refused to run the ad:
CNN’s PR Twitter feed responded:
CNN — both on the editorial and ad side — was correct. The ad juxtaposes the crazed statements of an undocumented immigrant convicted of police killings against images of thousands of caravaners coming north through Mexico. “WHO ELSE WOULD DEMOCRATS LET IN?” asks a banner in the ad. The message: Those hordes of brown people from Central America — they’re killers. Be afraid of them.
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Why was CNN uniquely able to discern this very obvious message? After profiting from its airing, two major players in U.S. media are bailing on the ad. NBC played the ad during Sunday night’s football game between the New England Patriots and the Green Bay Packers, a decision that prompted outcries against the network.
“After further review, we recognize the insensitive nature of the ad and have decided to cease airing it across our properties as soon as possible,” said a statement from the network. Fox News issued its own, similar statement: “Upon further review, Fox News pulled the ad yesterday and it will not appear on either Fox News Channel or Fox Business Network,” Fox’s ad sales president Marianne Gambelli told CNN. Facebook’s about-face came with this statement: “This ad violates Facebook’s advertising policy against sensational content so we are rejecting it. While the video is allowed to be posted on Facebook, it cannot receive paid distribution.”
It’s tempting to credit these organizations for reaching the right decision. But such temptation should be resisted here. The flow of the ad itself — knitting together the horror of murder with images of Central American migrants — leaves little room for interpretation. It’s prima facie racism — worse, even, than the famous “Willie Horton” ad from George H.W. Bush’s presidential run in 1988. On this front, CNN continues to speak with clarity: “Facebook has stopped the Trump campaign from running its racist anti-immigration commercial as an ad on the site,” reads the lead sentence in its story on the social media giant’s approach to the backlash.
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Another consideration is timing. When the Trump people launched the ad, the clear intent was to reach folks on the weekend before the midterms. These organizations assisted in that effort. NBC’s audience for the “Sunday Night Football” clash between two top National Football League teams fetched a generous 21 million viewers. The ad aired as well on MSNBC.
So these pullbacks come a bit late.
As the Daily Beast’s Maxwell Tani wrote last week, CNN did provide extensive editorial coverage of the ad, paired with appropriate denunciations of its content.
The aggressive racism in the ad places editors in a lose-lose-lose-lose-lose position. Ignore the ad, and leave the American public in the dark about the hateful things the president is doing in service of his political agenda. Cover the ad, and risk providing “earned media” to the president’s message. The only feasible approach is to cover it while citing the racism at its core.
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Take a close look at the statements from the organizations that have now rejected the ad. NBC cited the ad’s “insensitive nature”; Facebook cited “sensational content,” as befits a tech titan; Fox News didn’t characterize the ad. As with all corporate statements, these examples are carefully lawyered, carefully PR’d. The companies aren’t calling the ad “racist,” even as they bail on it. | {
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The Fast and the Furious series producer Neal Moritz is producing a new feature film based on Square Enix’s Sleeping Dogs franchise starring IP Man‘s Donnie Yen, Deadline reports.
The movie follows an undercover police officer, played by Yen, on a mission to take down the Chinese Triads.
The film will be produced at Original Film with DJ2 Entertainment, with producers Moritz, Dmitri Johnson, and Dan Jevons, with Toby Ascher and Stephan Bugaj executive producing. | {
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KERRYN Harrington can feel it clicking for Carlton.
Although the Blues started the 2019 AFL Women's season with successive defeats, drastically improved performances compared to last year had kept belief high within the group.
That belief was vindicated last Saturday.
In the most comprehensive showing in the team's short history, Carlton kicked its highest AFLW score (10.5.65) to score an emphatic 29-point victory over Greater Western Sydney.
For many in the AFLW community, the result in Blacktown was surprising – especially considering it was Carlton's first victory in 372 days. But for the Blues, it was just reward for executing a new style of play coach Daniel Harford has implemented since arriving.
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"We're sitting back and (saying) to the people who are saying, 'Gosh, now it's good to watch', that we knew it was going to happen," Harrington told AFL.com.au.
"It was always going to take time. We needed time to develop our game style and our skills and our ability to transition the ball from one end of the ground to the other cleanly."
The short time in which Harford's team has been able to move from last year's dour and defensive style to a fresh, attacking approach has been pleasing for Harrington, but it's hardly been surprising.
Having suffered a hefty defeat to the high-flying North Melbourne in round one, Carlton tested a strong Adelaide at Ikon Park a week later. Only an unanswered run of six goals on either side of the final change swung things in the Crows' favour.
Repeating that effort against the Giants, but doing so over four quarters, was key to securing victory. Now, the new-look Carlton team wants to achieve that more consistently.
Carlton players celebrate their win over GWS
"You could see it was coming, so it's no surprise for us that it's better to watch and more fun to play," Harrington said.
"Within the footy club, it's all positive. What we're hearing from people on the outside is that it's fun, attacking and engaging. We certainly feel that, but it's no surprise.
"It just needed time to develop and get there. It's only going to continue to grow in the next couple of years, so that's going to be really exciting.
"There's really been a shift, going from last year where we were a little more defensive-minded to now where we're a lot more attacking," she said.
"Any time you kick 10 goals in a game, you get 10 opportunities to celebrate with your teammates. It's clearly more fun when you're kicking goals and I think it engages the supporters a lot more."
Harrington is in her second season at AFLW level, having previously played for Bendigo Spirit in the Women's National Basketball League.
Elected into the club's leadership group at the start of the season, the 26-year-old has improved significantly in a host of key areas.
Having won double-digit disposals just twice in her first season, Harrington is yet to dip below that mark this year and is averaging 15.3 touches a game.
"I had absolutely no idea what I was in for last year," Harrington said.
People can tell you bits and pieces about how it's going to be, but until you've gone through it and experienced it I don't think you fully appreciate just what it takes to play at this level. Share via Facebook
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"My background in elite sport has helped me prepare and be able to adapt during the season, but there's no doubt coming into my second season I'm far more prepared and far more understanding of how I can impact the game and the group off the ground," she said.
"To have that sense of familiarity, but also knowing how hard I do have to work personally, is really helpful."
With conference games against Geelong, Collingwood and Brisbane to come, finals football suddenly looks like a realistic ambition for the Blues, who head the Conference B ladder.
"I think that idea was always in the back of our mind," Harrington said.
"We're happy with where we're sitting, but we've got a lot of work to do and we know that.
"You're not going to win a flag if you can't beat (teams in) the other conference, so we've got a lot of work to do. But I don't think it's scaring us that the other conference is doing as well as it is," she said.
"We just need to continue to play our style and continue to learn and build." | {
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Am i the only one around here Who is tired of that fucking call me maybe song
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Noua perspectivă a Bulgariei asupra ideii promovate de România în ultimele luni, de a crea, sub umbrela NATO, o flotă comună la Marea Neagră, a fost prezentată, joi, de prim-ministrul Boiko Borisov.
Cadrul, potrivit Novinite, ar fi fost un brifieng la care au mai participat şeful statului, Rosen Plevneliev, şi ministrul Apărării, Nikolay Nencev.
Premierul Borisov a spus după această întâlnire că atât președintele Rosen Plevneliev, cât și el și ministrul apărării sunt împotriva propunerii României de a alcătui o flotă comună la Marea Neagră care să contracareze influența Rusiei.
„Navele NATO ar putea patrula de-a lungul țărmurilor noastre numai în cazul unui aflux puternic de refugiați”, a spus Borisov, citat de Novinite.
Site-ul bulgar scrie că șeful executivului bulgar a mers de urgență la Președinție după ce ar fi apărut informații că Turcia a suspendat acordul bilateral de readmisie (a refugiaților) semnat cu Bulgaria în luna mai. Ankara ar fi făcut acest gest, din cauza reticenței Sofiei de a se alătura propunerii legate de flotă. Propunerea, scriu bulgarii de la Novinite, ar fi sprijinită nu numai de România, ci și de Turcia.
Totuși, notează Novinite, Ambasada Turciei în Bulgaria a negat suspendarea acordului.
„Nimeni nu ar trebui să pună la îndoială angajamentul nostru pro-NATO”, a declarat Boris Borisov, citat de cotidianul „24 Ceasa”. Dar, a adăugat el, nu este acceptabil să formezi o flotă „la modul în care s-a propus, atât la întâlnirea cu premierul român, cât și la cea cu președintele - noi suntem împotrivă”, a declarat Boiko Borisov.
Pe de altă parte, premierul Borisov s-a referit și la informația potrivit căreia Bulgaria ar putea pune la dispoziția NATO pentru brigada multinațională din România circa 400 de soldați. Potrivit Focus News, Boiko Borisov a spus că Bulgaria este țară NATO și ar trebui să trimită soldați când au loc exerciții. Pe de altă parte, premierul bulgar a menționat că un număr de până la 400 de soldați poate înseamna și 20 de soldați.
Cotidianul „24 Ceasa” scrie că dacă anterior, președintele Plevneliev a salutat ideea unei flote la Marea Neagră în timpul convorbirilor cu omologul Klaus Iohannis, premierul Borisov a respins-o categoric.
Ce a spus președintele bulgar la întâlnirea cu Klaus Iohannis
Miercuri după-amiaza, în schimb, în cadrul declaraţiei de presă comune susţinută cu omologul său român, Klaus Iohannis, preşedintele bulgar, Rosen Plevneliev, arăta că ţara sa susţine iniţiativa României în bazinul Mării Negre.
„Bulgaria nu numai în cuvinte, ci şi în fapte, va sprijini orice efort pentru îmbunătăţirea securităţii în regiune. Este în interesul nostru strategic. Bulgaria va contribui la crearea acestei structuri NATO în România, precum se aşteaptă să fie adoptată hotărârea la Varşovia. Aţi auzit şi ieri poziţia Guvernului bulgar prezentată de Ministrul Apărării din Bulgaria, domnul Nencev, după ce s-a întâlnit la Bruxelles cu omologul din România. A declarat foarte clar care este poziţia Bulgariei. Bulgaria sprijină iniţiativa şi va participa cu până la 400 de militari pe principiul rotaţiei. Dar nu numai asta, prietenii noştri români au avut o nouă iniţiativă, pe care o sprijinim, şi anume Iniţiativa Marină Regională în Marea Neagră. Este cu scop de apărare, evident, şi vom sprijini această nouă iniţiativă a României. Bulgaria va demonstra nu numai că stăm ferm în spatele colaborării regionale, dar vom folosi NATO ca platformă. Aşa cum a spus domnul Klaus Iohannis, totul depinde de noi şi împreună suntem puternici şi în stare să facem faţă la orice provocare. Noi vrem mai multă colaborare şi vrem mai multă securitate. De aceea, Bulgaria va sprijini aceste iniţiative, inclusiv ca NATO să ia aceste decizii în ceea ce priveşte Regiunea Mării Negre, care este de o importanţă tot mai mare. Împreună putem să contribuim la o abordare efectivă în aceste vremuri grele”, declara, miercuri, preşedintele Plevneliev (declaraţia integrală, în comunicatul Preşedinţiei României).
Pe de altă parte, consemnează agenţia RADOR, în luna februarie, pe fondul unei întâlniri la Bucureşti, şefii de stat ai Bulgariei şi României au solicitat o cooperare mai activă între ţările NATO la Marea Neagră şi în sud-estul Europei. Potrivit aceleiaşi surse, din cauza refuzului partenerilor bulgari de a se alătura flotei comune, Ankara a reziliat unilateral acordul cu Sofia de readmisie a refugiaţilor.
Proiectul flotei la Marea Neagră va figura şi pe agenda Summitului NATO de la Varşovia, ce va avea loc în 8 şi 9 iulie.
Ce scrie Borisov pe Facebook
Boiko Borisov și-a postat și pe contul de Facebook o declarație despre flota NATO la Marea Neagră.
„Încă nu avem nimic în scris din partea Turciei pentru suspendarea unilaterală a acordului de readmisie (...) Ne deranjează, vom găsi toate prilejurile pentru a vorbi cu colegii ca să vedem dacă estre accidentală, temporară sau e vorba de altă problemă, legată de refuzul meu de a angaja țara noastră în frontul comun împotriva Rusiei la Marea Neagră. Bulgaria este unul dintre cei mai loiali și mai corecți membri UE. Avem o bază navală, unde sunt soldați americani și de-ai noștri. Participăm continuu la exerciții, dar vreau în Marea Neagră veliere, iahturi, turiști pe plajă, nu fregate. Se pare că mulți oameni au uitat ce înseamnă războiul. Cred că Bulgaria nu poate fi atacată de Rusia. Ei (rușii - n.r.) au un alt tip de acțiune pe teritoriul Bulgariei, primordial economică, dar sunt convins că în ceea ce privește rachetele și tancurile, nu au asemenea idei. În urmă cu o săptămână, am vorbit cu premierul român, ieri cu președintele român și le-am spus nu numai despre pozițiile și rădăcinile noastre istorice, dar și ce s-a întâmplat în ultimii ani. În plus, să nu uităm când la Ankara, Erdogan și Putin puneau la cale South Stream pe o traiectorie turcească, iar președintele rus amenința cu degetul Bulgaria. Atunci, niciunul dintre colegii și vecinii mei nu a sărit în apărarea mea. În plus, am avut niște conflicte serioase, când a trebuit să apăr interesele noastre naționale, fie că era vorba de conducta Burgas-Alexandroupolis, fie de South Stream, fie de Belene. Acum, nu văd niciun motiv să vorbim despre flota de fregate. Depășește limitele a ceea ce pot eu. Am să le cer explicații miniștrilor mei, dacă au făcut asemenea promisiuni”, a scris Borisov pe Facebook.
Ce spune acum președintele bulgar
La rândul său, președintele Plevneliev a recunoscut că subiectul flotei a fost abordat în timpul întâlnirilor cu oficialii români, dar a precizat că nu s-a luat nicio decizie. „Hai să terminăm cu speculațiile că flota va fi îndreptată împotriva cuiva”, a declarat președintele bulgar, citat de Focus News. El a explicat că în convorbirile cu Klaus Iohannis, președintele român a vorbit despre posibilitatea unei inițiative regionale, în cadrul NATO, care ar implica exerciții navale comune. Șeful statului buglar a mai spus că singurul lucru care a fost discutat concret a fost brigada multinațională din România, care ar furniza antrenamente, pe baza principiului rotației trupelor, și la care Bulgaria ar pute contribui cu 400 de soldați. El a confirmat că România și Bulgaria vor face o propunere comună la apropiatul summit NATO la Varșovia, dar a exclus posibilitatea ca propunerea să se refere la crearea unor unități militare comune care să fie îndreptate împotriva altor națiuni.
La rândul său, ministrul apărării Necev a negat că și-ar fi luat vreun angajament de a participa la o flotă la Marea Neagră. El a recunoscut că a fost pus la curent cu „inițiativa României și Turciei” de omologul Mihnea Motoc, dar a adăugat că problema trebuie să fie luată în discuție la nivelul NATO.
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Jose Mourinho will spend big in the summer - though Manchester United are unlikely to add to the squad in the January transfer window.
United are reportedly targeting Atletico Madrid's Antoine Griezmann and Monaco's Tiemoue Bakayoko and retain interest in Benfica pair Victor Lindelof and Nelson Semedo.
With Morgan Schneiderlin leaving for Everton and Memphis Depay expected to follow him out later this month Mourinho is raising the funds to spend big in the summer.
Another midfielder United are looking to sign is Atletico Madrid star Saul Niguez as a long term replacement for Michael Carrick, according to reports.
The Express claim United will make a move for the 22-year-old in the summer.
Niguez broke into the team last year with a stunning solo goal against Bayern Munich in the Champions League pushing him into the spotlight.
The Sun reports target Paulo Dybala is happy at Italian giants Juventus and is unlikely to be moving.
Dybala said: “Barcelona or Real Madrid? There’s no offers, for me there are no problems for the renewal.
“I’m fine at Juventus, my agent will be in Turin in the coming days for the renewal.
“Arrigo Sacchi told Florentino Perez to sign me? I’m thinking only about Juventus.”
Meanwhile, United are the Premier League favourites to sign West Ham want away Dimitri Payet.
Slaven Bililc announced today that the midfielder was refusing to play for the Hammers and wanted to leave.
Squawka News has United down as odds on Premier League favourites behind his former club Marseille who are leading the race.
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After a particularly difficult work week I was so excited to see an Amazon box leaning up against my door when I got home from work. Inside was American Gods by one of my favourite authors Neil Gaiman and The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway. I had leant my copy of American Gods to a "friend" a couple of years ago and had never gotten it back so I am thrilled that this awesome book has found it's way back into my life. I can't wait to read it again. I have always been curious about Ernest Hemingway so I can't wait to dive in to this too. Thank you so much Book Santa! You made my day. | {
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After two years as the new third rail of American politics, climate change is poised for a return to Capitol Hill.
In the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy and this summer's drought, the political atmosphere seems to have changed. Washington observers say the cost of extreme weather are too big and obvious to be ignored.
What form climate legislation could take remains undetermined, but the Democrats' failed 2010 cap-and-trade bill won't likely be reheated. There's a demand for new ideas – and, at least for now, those ideas will be heard.
"Insurance companies are talking about this. Governors and mayors are. Communities all over the country are having serious conversations about resilience and extreme weather," said Eric Pooley, senior vice president of the Environmental Defense Fund, a centrist advocacy group.
Continued Pooley, "It used to seem abstract, like something to protect our grandchildren from. Now it's something we want to protect ourselves and our living children from. It doesn't mean there won't be battles over the specifics of the ideas, but it does mean we might be able to have a grown-up conversation."
Pooley's optimism may ring hollow to people who remember the 2010 climate change bill, a cap-and-trade plan for carbon pollution that imploded in a storm of partisan acrimony, or see in the post-election political landscape little reason to think Congress will achieve any more bipartisan agreement now than in the past several gridlocked years.
There are, however, some practical reasons that the new Congress will be less dysfunctional, and climate change, so notably absent from the presidential campaign, was thrust by Sandy into the national spotlight.
Climate change's influence on Sandy is actually still uncertain – it's safe to say that unnatural warming added an extra 8 inches to eastern U.S. sea levels, but harder to know if an abnormally off-kilter polar jet stream kept the storm from moving harmlessly out to sea – but more apparent in other calamities.
A recent report by German insurance giant Munich Re put the U.S. weather disaster bill at $1 trillion since the early 1980s, with climate change as a main driver. While the economy is still the top priority among U.S. voters, climate's economic impacts are more evident than ever.
"We all need to come to terms with the cost of climate change," wrote the editors of Bloomberg.com in a recent editorial. Michael Bloomberg, the Republican-turned-Independent mayor of New York City, endorsed President Obama precisely because he was more open than Mitt Romney to addressing climate issues.
Of course, anything that emerges from Congress will need bipartisan support, but Democrats and Republicans have quietly started talking about climate, said Josh Freed, director of energy policy at centrist think tank Third Way. Ideas have been floated that both sides could agree on.
"If you break the challenges that climate change presents down into their parts, there are real opportunities over the next four years," Freed said. "The bright side of Congress not having worked much over the last two years is that we have a surplus of ideas that could work."
Andrew Moylan, a senior fellow at R Street, a free market think tank, said that "we're starting to hear more of these discussions happening in Washington." A return to 2010's cap-and-trade program would be doomed, he said, a sentiment echoed by Freed and Pooley, but conservatives might be open to other approaches.
An opening piece of bipartisan common ground could be mitigation and adaptation: infrastructure improvements that make municipalities less vulnerable to extreme weather. Mayor Bloomberg's own PlaNYC project is a blueprint for some of these approaches.
Reforms that dovetail neatly with budget savings could also be popular, said Moylan. These could include cutting federal subsidies and insurance for development in sensitive areas, such as coastal wetlands and barrier islands.
Continued federal investment in clean energy and green technology is also up for debate. Many Republicans, especially in the House of Representatives, have resisted this spending, though it has been productive, especially in pushing electric and hybrid electric-gasoline cars to the verge of widespread consumer adoption, Freed said.
A less contentious option may be to encourage private investments. Legislation proposed by Sens. Jerry Moran (R-Kansas) and Chris Coons (D-Delaware) would give financial incentives to greentech investors that are currently restricted to investments in fossil fuel-based projects.
The energy industry itself will also come under scrutiny in the next several years, especially as the Environmental Protection Agency begins regulating greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, the largest U.S. source of carbon pollution. That plan upheld in multiple court decisions but is opposed by many Republicans.
After-and-before Sandy photographs from coastal New Jersey. Image: NASA Goddard Photo and Video/Flickr
"I think we're going to see a big fight as the administration moves forward on setting those standards," said Alden Meyer, strategy director at the Union of Concerned Scientists, a liberal advocacy group.
That fight is probably unavoidable messy, but it may be easier to look at pollution from natural gas.
While natural gas is far cleaner-burning than coal or oil, extracting it from the ground involves a certain amount of accidental leakage of methane and other extremely potent greenhouse gases.
"Stopping those leaks could give us the same benefits of shutting down one-third of all coal-fired power plants in the country," said Pooley, whose Environmental Defense Fund is working with nine natural gas companies to reduce methane leaks. "There's no law saying you need to reduce that leakage, and whether that happens at the state or federal level, that needs to happen."
One idea that's received widespread attention is a federal carbon tax, in which a per-ton tax is levied on carbon emissions by companies. While this might seem anathema to Republicans, and has indeed by opposed by some conservatives, including the Heritage Foundation, some are open to the idea.
"It has some pitfalls, but I think there's potential for some sort of discussion around a revenue-neutral carbon tax," said Moylan. Unlike a cap-and-trade approach, with its complicated markets in carbon credits, a carbon tax would be relatively straightforward, Moylan said. It could also be offset with cuts in other taxes, ultimately minimizing economic impacts.
"You can have a conversation around that," Moylan said. "You can have a debate about what the contours might look like, and what might be necessary to get people not necessarily motivated by climate issues to buy in."
Of course, if other countries, especially developing countries and fast-growing nations like China and Brazil, don't also address climate change, action by the United States won't be sufficient. But if the U.S. doesn't doesn't lead, it can't push other countries to do their share.
Freed said that climate and energy issues probably won't take center stage for months yet, as the so-called fiscal cliff and tax policy reform are more pressing. After that, climate will be on the table.
"President Obama talked about climate change and innovation in virtually the same breath," said Audubon Society president David Yarnold of the president's victory speech. "I think that's a really great reminder that there are solutions that are possible. It's not going to be easy, but it can be done."
Correction: Mayor Michael Bloomberg was originally identified as a Republican. He is a former Republican who switched to Independent in 2009. We apologize for the mistake. | {
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CAIRO (Reuters) - Human Rights Watch accused Egypt on Tuesday of mass demolition of homes in the Sinai Peninsula, some of it meant to punish suspected Islamist militants and their families, in a security crackdown in the remote desert region.
The New York-based rights watchdog said demolitions, which have taken place in recent years to carve out buffer zones along borders such as that with the Islamist-ruled Gaza Strip, had increased significantly.
An Egyptian military spokesman denied the report, saying it was based on “undocumented sources”, and said the armed forces were working within a legal framework to create a buffer zone along the Gaza border and around al-Arish airport.
Egypt in February launched a highly-publicized operation against Islamic State militants who have waged years of attacks on security forces and more recently on civilians in which hundreds of people have been killed.
As part of a push against the militants, authorities announced they were razing farmland and properties for several km (miles) around the town of al-Arish in North Sinai.
After militants stepped up their attacks in 2013, the military razed an extensive area along the border with Gaza.
Human Rights Watch said the authorities had demolished more than 3,000 buildings and razed farmland within a 12 km (7.5-mile) area along the Gaza frontier, as well as scores of buildings near al-Arish.
“The total number of buildings demolished so far in 2018 is the largest since the government ordered the eviction of residents from the Rafah buffer zone in October 2014,” HRW said in its report.
The group also said three witnesses had reported security forces demolishing or burning “several buildings” in al-Arish which they had identified as being owned by suspected militants or their relatives.
CRITICISM
“The Egyptian army claims it is protecting people from militants, but it’s absurd to think that destroying homes and displacing lifelong residents would make them safer,” HRW Middle East director Sarah Leah Whitson said in a statement.
Reuters could not independently verify HRW’s report. Egypt does not allow international media to travel to North Sinai to report.
The military spokesman said residents affected by the creation of the buffer zones have been properly compensated.
“The value of the compensations has reached 900 million pounds ($50.4 million). This in addition to the essential goods and medical and administrative needs that the armed forces provide to citizens in areas of operations,” the statement said.
Critics say Egypt’s use of conventional military might against militants who have hidden out for years in Sinai is unlikely to clear them from the vast rugged region, which lies on the Red Sea between the Gulf of Suez and the Gulf of Aqaba and is separated from mainland Egypt by the Suez Canal.
Defeat of Islamist militants and restoring stability is one of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s main pledges as he begins a second term.
Egypt’s 2011 popular uprising, which toppled longtime president Hosni Mubarak, was followed by years of violent political upheaval that severely damaged Egypt’s economy. | {
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Dear XRT Community Members/Supporters,
Thank you for choosing XRT Token (A ERC20 protocol based cryptocurrency by XRT Foundation) as your choice. We hereby want to inform you that due to payload size vulnerability(https://github.com/OpenZeppelin/zeppelin-solidity/issues/261) in old smart XRT Token contract (0x99092a458b405fb8c06c5a3aa01cffd826019568), we (XRT Foundation) have decided to upgrade the smart contract from version X1.0 to latest version X1.1 that has been deployed at (0x37d404a072056eda0cd10cb714d35552329f8500). We request everyone(authentic holder(s) of XRT Tokens) including exchanges to swap their XRT Token by sending all their old Tokens at the creator wallet ( 0x073db5ac9aa943253a513cd692d16160f1c10e74 ) of XRT Tokens (version X1.0). We will destroy/burn all the tokens(in circulation) by sending them to genesis block and provide you upgraded XRT Tokens (version X1.1). Once you send them to the above creator wallet, Then the process of sending new tokens in return may take 24-48 hours
The notice is issued in public interest by 24th July 2018 on 1:30 PM (GMT+5:30).
In case of any query/issue contact us directly at:- [email protected]
Old Smart Contract: 0x99092a458b405fb8c06c5a3aa01cffd826019568
New Smart Contract: 0x37d404a072056eda0cd10cb714d35552329f8500
Thank you,
MJ Paul| CEO
XRT Foundation | {
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Today is World Food Day. It might, if one heeds the words of Ban Ki-moon, be more suitably designated Global Lack of Nutrition Day. For, according to a statement by the Secretary-General of the United Nations this weekend, in a world that can produce enough food to feed everyone, nearly a billion people will go hungry today. And that is one in seven of us.
A welter of little-noticed reports have been published on the subject in the past week, notably a study of worldwide food insecurity by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). This estimated that a total of 925 million people were undernourished in 2010, two-thirds of whom lived in just seven countries – Bangladesh, China, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia and Pakistan. The report makes a distinction between those living below subsistence level, and those in countries such as Somalia in "protracted crisis". About 166 million in such places are starving or undernourished.
The reports make quite clear that rising food prices, stock market speculation in crop futures, conflict, climate change and corrupt, repressive regimes are the reasons why so many people go hungry – not humanity's inability to grow enough crops. The findings come three months after the declaration of a major famine in the Horn of Africa – a glaring instance of several of these dread factors working at once.
There are few countries in East Africa left unaffected by the terrible drought in the region, but it is only in Somalia that persistent conflict and a lack of an effective central government have tipped the situation into a full-scale famine. Money has poured in from governments, agencies and individuals, all wanting to help. The total raised so far is about £1.8bn – equating to £140 in aid for each of the 13 million people at risk of starvation.
Despite this, there are still hundreds of thousands who are not getting help because they are trapped in parts of the country controlled by the al-Qa'ida-linked terror group al-Shabaab. Most Western agencies are blocked from accessing south and central Somalia by al-Shabaab, and those that can get in are well aware of the security risk. With the most significant shortfalls in the delivery of aid occurring in the areas of greatest need, an estimated 25,000 children have died in Somalia since the start of the crisis.
In the Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya, previously seen as one of the safer locations for aid workers, the kidnapping of two Spanish women working for Médecins Sans Frontières has caused agencies to begin withdrawing international staff. The UN refugee agency, UNHCR, has suspended non-critical operations at the sprawling camp after Thursday's broad-daylight attack in the heart of Dadaab. Aid agencies are becoming increasingly concerned by the worsening insecurity at the camp, where refugee numbers have swollen to more than 460,000 this year as famine and conflict drive Somalis across the border.
However, in some drought-affected areas in Kenya and Ethiopia, the situation is gradually beginning to improve. More aid is getting through, some harvests are being reaped and the long-awaited arrival of rain is making pasture available for surviving livestock. Most regions are starting to see rain, although forecasts suggest the north of Somalia will not get enough to ensure a decent harvest. But the rains will not be the panacea that people hoped for, as disease and flooding take the place of famine. Torrential rain hit drought-displaced families living in camps in Mogadishu last week, sweeping at least two children away, killing a pregnant woman and leaving thousands of people without shelter.
Today marks 100 days since the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) launched its East Africa Crisis Appeal, which has now reached £72m, the largest total ever raised by the organisation for famine relief. Brendan Gormley, the DEC's chief executive, said: "The incredibly generous support of the UK public has made the difference between life and death for many people in the region. The situation remains grave, however, particularly in those areas of Somalia where access for most aid agencies remains severely restricted."
He added: "We must also confront the hard truth that the worst of this crisis could have been averted. After the 1984-85 famine in Ethiopia, systems were put in place to warn the world should famine ever threaten the region again."
A lack of proper planning and prevention has once again created a crisis in East Africa, despite many thwarted attempts to break the cycle of famine. In 2000 the UN Secretary-General announced the establishment of an inter-agency task force in the Horn of Africa. A strategy was published but, after much political wrangling, never implemented.
Kostas Stamoulis, director of agricultural development economics for the UN, said: "Unless we stick to a long-term plan for getting regions out of crisis and out of vulnerability, then every five years we'll be talking about the Horn of Africa." Mr Stamoulis is aware that while crises such as the one in Somalia will be reported on, the long-term problem, with nearly a billion people going hungry across the globe, continues to be ignored. "Emergencies affect hundreds of thousands of people every year but chronic hunger is a huge problem," he said. "We can't mobilise food aid to feed nearly one billion – it just isn't feasible."
The UN believes part of the reason for food shortages is a lack of investment in agriculture. In countries in protracted crisis, the FAO report says that only 3-4 per cent of funds for development and humanitarian assistance go towards agriculture.
Mr Stamoulis said: "Some 75 per cent of those going hungry are rural people who derive most of their living from agriculture. We have neglected agriculture for too long. For years, people felt the way out of economic difficulties was to industrialise, but that meant agriculture was neglected in terms of research and in terms of rural infrastructure ... If we don't do something now we're going to face even more of these food security crises in the future. If you add in climate change and the fact that natural resources to produce food are declining, we'll be in pretty bad shape."
In Yemen, a deteriorating situation has quickly become a disaster. Last week the World Food Programme warned that the country faces a humanitarian crisis after rising food prices combined with political instability to put 3.5 million people at risk of starvation. In Afghanistan, three decades of war and instability have had a similar effect. Almost one-third of the population do not have access to enough food to stay healthy.
In many countries, humanitarian relief is complicated by politics. The Obama administration was last week accused of dithering over sending food aid to North Korea. A third of all children under five in the Communist country are chronically malnourished but the US says it will not give aid until the state guarantees it will reach the most needy and until there is an improvement in relations with South Korea. North Korea's dysfunctional food-distribution system, rising global food prices and sanctions imposed because of its nuclear and missile programmes have all contributed to the crisis. On top of this came recent typhoons and flooding.
But for many of the millions going hungry each year, it is not war or natural disaster that prevents them from having enough to eat but simply not having sufficient money in their pockets. Worldwide food prices have been high since 2006, when speculation by traders caused staples such as rice to rise by up to 320 per cent in a year. From 2005 to 2008, the worldwide average price of food went up by 80 per cent – and it is still rising.
For those whose income was only ever enough to fund their subsistence, it has meant being priced out of life.
Additional reporting by Eliza Craston
Give a Day's Pay for Africa tops £130,000 | {
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(ANTIMEDIA) The Netherlands — Whether it’s information technology, gymnastics, or Shaolin Kung Fu, 11-year-old Reuben Paul knocks it out of the park.
This kid from Austin, Texas, just stunned a crowd of cybersecurity experts at a conference in the Netherlands by demonstrating how just about anything can be “weaponized” when it’s connected to the Internet.
“From airplanes to automobiles, from smartphones to smart homes, anything or any toy” can be part of the Internet of Things (IOT), Paul said while speaking at the World Forum in The Hague. “From terminators to teddy bears, anything or any toy can be weaponized.”
The 6th grader, who also excels in gymnastics and is the youngest-ever American to earn a Shaolin Kung Fu black belt, put his money where his mouth was. To back up his claims, he presented a teddy bear that connects to wi-fi using Bluetooth technology.
Paul then plugged a small device known as a “Raspberry Pi” into his laptop. The 11-year-old scanned the room for Bluetooth devices, then — “to everyone’s amazement,” according to Agence France-Presse — he downloaded dozens of phone numbers from the cyber security experts gathered in the room.
Then, using a computer language program called Python, Paul hacked into the teddy’s bear’s system using one of the collected numbers. To hammer his point home, he turned on the toy’s light and recorded a message from an audience member.
“IOT home appliances, things that can be used in our everyday lives, our cars, lights, refrigerators,” Paul told AFP after the conference, “everything like this that is connected can be used and weaponized to spy on us or harm us.”
The wunderkind’s father, information technology expert Mano Paul — while admittedly “shocked” by the types of security vulnerabilities his son is able to expose — says Reuben has been doing this type of thing all this life:
“He has always surprised us. Every moment when we teach him something he’s usually the one who ends up teaching us.”
Creative Commons / Anti-Media / Report a typo / Image: Erin Pettigrew | {
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Breaking News
Cincinnati police are zeroing in on the parents of the 3-year-old boy who fell into Harambe the gorilla's enclosure ... a strong sign they could still be charged with a crime.
Cincy PD says they are reviewing "the actions of the parents/family that led up to the incident." Cops make it clear they're NOT focusing on the Cincinnati Zoo -- since that falls under the United States Department of Agriculture's jurisdiction.
Critics have called for the parents -- Michelle Gregg and Deonne Dickerson -- to face negligence charges ... blaming them for setting in motion the chain of events that led to Harambe's death. | {
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Kurdish peshmergas carry a man, wounded during clashes between units belong to Kurdish peshmerga forces and Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant as peshmerga forces carry out a operation on ISIL-controlled Vhid and Said villages of Daquq town of Kirkuk, Iraq on September 30, 2014. (Ali Mukarrem Garip - Anadolu Agency) | {
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Chinese officials have ordered local media not to “hype” a story about interbank problems and avoid the term “cash crunch”. The directive came as an effort to calm down financial markets that have seen interest rates rise sharply.
Seeking to avoid an apparent repeat of the June cash crunch that caused panic among investors and weakened China’s debt-ridden financial markets, Chinese censors ordered financial reporters to tone down the issue of a liquidity crisis, the Financial Times reports.
Last week interbank rates jumped to 9.9 percent and neared a June’s sky-high of 13.4 percent, as the People’s Bank of China (PBoC) that wants to make lenders more disciplined, seemed unwilling to inject money into the markets.
However, PBoC said on Thursday it had carried out “short-term liquidity operations” to tackle the problem and on Friday released a more detailed report, saying it would inject $49 billion into the financial market.
In a similar move in June, Chinese authorities ordered the media to “strengthen their positive reporting” and “fully report the positive aspect of our current economic situation, bolstering the market’s confidence”, according to a copy obtained by the FT.
Over nine consecutive days the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index has fallen, with 2 per cent on Friday, making it the longest losing streak in over 19 years. | {
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ENGLAND IN NEW ZEALAND, 2018
Wood sent for precautionary scan on injured ankle
by Rob Johnston • Last updated on
The England management will be worried by Wood's latest setback. © Getty
England's Mark Wood has been sent for a 'precautionary' scan on the injured left ankle which ruled him out of the first ODI against New Zealand in Hamilton on Sunday (February 25) raising further questions about the fast-bowler's durability.
Wood has had three previous ankle surgeries and has missed plenty of cricket since his England debut in 2015, playing just ten Tests, 23 ODIs and four T20Is in that time. Although captain Eoin Morgan was keen to play down the latest injury, the Durham man's participation in the rest of the ODI series, the second match of which is on Wednesday (February 28) in Mount Maunganui, is unknown.
"It's not a serious concern at the moment," Mogan said after the match in Hamilton. "He's picked up a soreness over the last couple of days and wasn't worth the risk today. We'll see how he is over the next 24 hours to see whether he can play in the next game or build a plan as to when he can come back."
After being ruled out of much of 2016 with ankle problems - he played just four ODIs that year - Wood missed much of the last home summer too after injuring his heel in the second Test against South Africa at Trent Bridge last July. That injury failed to clear up in time for him to prove his fitness with Durham ahead of the Ashes series and the selectors felt unable to select him for the squad as a result.
Although Wood spent the latter part of the tour travelling and training with the England team, he was not considered for any of the Test matches. Instead, he made his international comeback during the ODI section of the trip, and despite only taking four wickets from four matches at an average of 52, impressed with his pace and aggression.
England's management and Wood himself will no doubt be worried by this latest setback and it once again raises fears that the 28-year-old's body is simply not up to the rigours of fast-bowling. The injury not only puts his participation in the rest of the ODI series in jeopardy but also raises questions about whether he will be able to fulfil his IPL deal for Chennai Super Kings.
It also leaves England's one-day attack shorn of pace. Wood is the only genuinely quick bowler that Morgan has at his disposal and with Liam Plunkett's withdrawal from the squad, also because of injury, England's seam bowling line-up for the first match in Hamilton - David Willey, Chris Woakes and Tom Curran - looked rather one-paced.
© Cricbuzz
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One woman was killed, at least nine others injured and 37 arrested, including seven Buddhist monks, who were later released, after violence erupted Tuesday morning in Phnom Penh’s Meanchey district between protesting garment factory workers, civilians and security forces, who fired live ammunition.
Two police vehicles and at least two police motorcycles were torched after several hundred workers from the SL Garment factory, who were attempting to march to Prime Minister Hun Sen’s residence, had their route blocked by police.
During the clashes, six police officers were trapped in a room inside the Stung Meanchey pagoda for more than one hour, but escaped unharmed.
Street vendor Eng Sokhom, 49, who was not taking part in the protest, was shot and killed during the clashes as she served food to customers, human rights workers said. The slain woman’s son, Vong Panha, 21, told reporters at the Khmer-Soviet Friendship hospital that his mother, who worked near the Stung Meanchey pagoda, had been serving food to a customer when she was shot in the chest.
Two Cambodia Daily journalists witnessed at least five police officers firing pistols in the direction of the protesters. One of the officers, who had been trapped in the pagoda, was seen drawing his handgun and shooting a young man in the torso at close range following his release. The shot man had not challenged the police officer in any way.
The clashes erupted at about 8:45 a.m. after about 2,000 workers from the SL Garment factory—the majority of whom were men—tried marching to Mr. Hun Sen’s house, only to be met by a phalanx of military police who urged them to retreat.
About 60 riot police began banging their shields and pushing the workers back, aided by water cannon trucks, prompting a volley of rocks to be thrown from protesters around the nearby Stung Meanchey pagoda. Police retreated, leaving a truck inside the pagoda, which was swiftly pushed outside, toppled and torched by the protesters. Two police motorcycles were also thrown on the fire.
Six police officers who were unable to retreat with their colleagues locked themselves in a room at the pagoda as an angry crowd of workers gathered outside. Outside the room, a growing crowd that included monks and bystanders became increasingly agitated—often breaking up and tearing off in different directions as those outside the pagoda grounds yelled various warnings and police massed on the nearby Stung Meanchey bridge.
Sok Sy Ngeth, a 20-year-old monk who was one of the seven arrested and later released, said during the fracas that he supported the workers.
“I support them. I have a great deal of sympathy for the workers. Most of them are poor and they work in the garment factory in order to get money to support their families in the countryside,” he said.
As several hundred riot police advanced from Stung Meanchey bridge toward the pagoda, rocks were thrown from the protesters’ side—many hurled by barefoot youths wearing kramas across their faces.
This was quickly met by a hail of 38-mm rubber baton rounds, tear gas and what appeared to be live ammunition fired from pistols wielded by police officers, which forced the protesters to briefly retreat. It was one of several such clashes that raged on streets around the pagoda over the next couple of hours, culminating in the dispatch of several hundred military police officers, who stormed the pagoda and chased off the remaining stone throwers.
Shortly before the military police stormed the pagoda, the six police officers trapped inside were assisted in their escape by human rights workers and riot police officers. As one of the escaping officers fled, a Cambodia Daily journalist witnessed him raise a pistol and fire at Hoeun Chan, a 20-year-old university student, who was hit in the torso. Mr. Chan had not challenged the police officer, and was not even in his direct line of flight when he was shot.
Outside the pagoda, on Veng Sreng Boulevard, 49-year-old Ms. Sokhom lay dying, shot in the chest by a bullet as she served rice to workers and other bystanders. Ms. Sokhom was taken to Khmer-Soviet Friendship Hospital, but was dead on arrival, doctors said.
As her grieving family awaited the release of her body from the morgue Tuesday afternoon, three other shooting victims and a journalist with chest injuries were receiving treatment in the intensive care unit. An employee of Phnom Penh Municipality, who was also at the protest, was treated for minor tear gas inhalation.
Ms. Sokhom’s 27-year-old son, Vong Sopheak, his pants still drenched in his mother’s blood, said he was about 20 meters away from his mother and had been looking in her direction when she was shot by police.
“At first the police shot in the air, then when the protesters moved forward they shot at them,” Mr. Sopheak said.
“I saw her get shot and she shouted out ‘Oy!’ By the time I got her into a tuk-tuk, I could see she was dead.”
Mr. Sopheak’s younger brother, Mr. Panha said he was standing at his mother’s side when she was shot and had been close enough to be splattered with blood.
“She was standing serving rice to a customer. She shouted ‘Oy!’ and fell down to the ground,” he said, confirming that she had been shot in the upper right chest.
“This is an injustice. We are not protesters, we are just common people,” he added. “After the funeral, we will gather our family to discuss filing a complaint.”
Inside the hospital, family members were applying a block of ice to the chest of Ven That, who had been caught in a stampede of protesters. Mr. That, a cameraman for TV9, said he had been standing between police and protesters when chaos broke out as police began shooting.
“I saw the police shoot at the protesters first. Then the protesters began throwing stones back, and then I was knocked down and the protesters trampled me,” Mr. That said.
Mr. Chan, the university student who was shot inside the pagoda by a police officer, went into surgery at 12:50 p.m., hospital documents show, and he emerged at around 2:30 p.m. in stable condition.
Dr. Bon Say, an anesthetist, said as he left the operating room that Mr. Chan had been shot in the spleen, which was removed along with the bullet that had hit him.
Hin Huon, a 48-year-old motorcycle taxi driver, said he had just left the nearby Doeumkor market, where he had dropped off a customer, and stopped to watch the protest when he was shot.
“I just stopped briefly to have a look at the protesters, and when the police pushed the protesters, I ran and was shot in my buttock,” he said.
Dr. Sun Eang, a physician in the ICU, said Mr. Huon’s injury was serious, with X-rays showing the bullet lodged in his hip bone, but that Mr. Huon should survive his injury.
Ty Sophanith, 30, an SL factory worker and the only person at the hospital Tuesday who admitted to having participated in the protest, was shot in his right thigh and his back. X-rays showed a bullet lodged next to his broken thigh bone. Mr. Sophanith said the bullet had entered his lower back and exited his left shoulder near his neck.
“It is unjust that the police shot into the protesters because I came out to protest only to demand [that strikers] are reinstated to their jobs,” Mr. Sophanith said, referring to SL workers who have been on strike since August.
Naly Pilorge, director of rights group Licadho, said of the nine injured, two were police officers and another two were journalists from TV9.
SL Garment factory workers have been striking to demand a pay raise and the removal of plainclothes military police officers who were drafted in to provide security at the factory, as well as the reinstatement of a work schedule that includes half-hour meal breaks. The SL factory makes clothing for both Gap and H&M.
“Today we received news about the tragic incident when police and garment workers of SL garments clashed,” said Anna Eriksson, spokeswoman at H&M’s communications and press department in Sweden.
“Our thoughts go to the victim’s family and hope that the situation will calm down and that no more people will get injured. We urge the parties to resume negotiations and come to an agreement through dialogue shortly,” she said.
In a statement, the Cambodian Human Rights Action Committee, a coalition of 21 NGOs, condemned the “excessive use of force” by the authorities at the clash.
“It seems that the lessons learned by the soft-handed approach by the authorities at the mass-rally of the opposition party in October—in which there were no injuries—have been forgotten and the authorities are returning to inadequate crowd control and the kind of violent crackdowns that left Mr. Mao Sok Chan, another innocent bystander, murdered at the Kbal Thnal overpass in September,” it said, calling for a full investigation into Ms. Sokhom’s death.
Rights group Licadho and the Community Legal Education Center said: “An innocent food vendor shot dead and over a half dozen people with serious bullet wounds is the tragic outcome of unnecessary and disproportionate police force and reflects the utter lack of will from the part of the authority to seek a peaceful way out of today’s situation.”
The use of force was branded “reprehensible,” and Licadho called for an investigation into the killing.
Phnom Penh municipal police chief Chuon Sovann said his officers had shown restraint and were “patient.” He declined to comment when asked about the use of live rounds by police and the death and injury to apparent bystanders.
“This morning we worked very hard to keep the peace, but as reporters have seen, the rocks were thrown all over at the authorities,” Mr. Sovann said.
Chuon Narin, deputy municipal police chief, flatly denied that his officers had fired their pistols, despite witness accounts and photographs of police carrying handguns.
“They only fired tear gas and rubber bullets,” Mr. Narin claimed. “It was an anonymous bullet,” he said of the round that killed street food vendor Ms. Sokhom.
The National Police Commissariat issued a statement late Tuesday that mentioned the dead woman, but not the use of live rounds by police, and blamed “opportunists” for the violence. It said that 47 police officers had sustained both minor and serious injuries.
“Opportunistic groups who were not demonstrators took a chance to incite and provoke violence on the police by throwing stones and using slingshots, and beat and destroyed and surrounded police armed forces as hostages,” the statement says.
Thirty people remained in custody at the municipal police headquarters last night. Seven monks who had been detained along with other protesters were released and returned to Stung Meanchey pagoda, police and monks said.
Heng Sros, 20, one of the arrested monks, said after his release last night that police had insulted him and his colleagues, and had made them sign statements swearing that they would not partake in any more protests.
Van Sou Ieng, chairman of the Garment Manufacturers’ Association of Cambodia, said the protesting SL workers should have followed the law.
“We are very sad to hear that [about the woman being shot], but everybody should be law-abiding citizens. You can’t just allow anyone to go out and protest without authorization—even in politics, the opposition respects the law on demonstrations. We have to call on the public in Cambodia to be law-abiding citizens. Enforce the rule of law,” he said.
Kong Athit, vice president of the Coalition of Cambodian Apparel Workers’ Democratic Union, deplored the use of live rounds by police during the protest and said union and government representatives would meet today.
“We are grieving strongly for the dead and injured people because the authorities used rifles to shoot our protesters who were unarmed, and we are not able to accept this cruel action.
“[Tuesday] there were no negotiations with SL, but I was invited by the Ministry of Labor to hold a meeting [today] at 2 p.m.,” he said.
“I will ask the ministry officials to intervene in pushing the authorities to stop using violence.”
Sok Danoy Tharakthan, a Free Trade Union representative for the SL workers, said the blame lay with the police who blocked the road and prevented the protest march.
“We regret that the authorities used violence against the workers, since they do not have weapons,” he said.
At her home Tuesday, Ms. Sokhom’s body was laid out on a blood-soaked white sheet.
Her family and neighbors gathered solemnly as a Buddhist layman oversaw a blessing ceremony, sprinkling water over her body and lighting incense.
Her sister, 64-year-old Eng Them remembered the mother-of-three as hard-working.
“She was a gentle woman,” she said. “She worked hard to support her children and her husband.”
Ms. Sokhom’s husband, 51-year-old Nget Vong, said his wife would be cremated on Thursday and that City Hall had offered to cover the costs.
“We hope that they will find justice if they are willing to. We also regret that the authorities used excessive force against the people and those who were traveling and watching [the protest], especially killing my wife.”
(Additional reporting by Colin Meyn, Khuon Narim, Alex Willemyns, Aun Pheap)
© 2013, All rights reserved. | {
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I don’t know what to say here… here’s some ska. I really hope you dig it. I seriously love every song on this episode, even the one in a language I don’t fully understand, but that’s the thing about ska, right? It’s bringing us together. The love of music, the love of a good time, that’s ska. No matter the language, no matter the country, no matter the decade, it’s that ska beat that brings us joy. I hope this episode brings you joy too.
00:00 – Danny Rebel & the KGB – I got a Feeling (Lovehaus ’17)
03:37 – the Scotch Bonnets – Whimsical Friend (Come on Over ’19)
07:34 – the ‘Vengers – Can You Feel It (Push This? ’97)
11:45 – Matamoska! – Cicatriz (Skalluminati ’17)
15:19 – Mad Dog and the 20/20s – Girl on a String (Things We Should’ve Said (But We’ll Dance to Instead) ’17)
18:27 – the Domingoes – Unity (Unity ’19)
Show support for the bands by clicking on those links and checking out their websites and music! Show support for the podcast by donating on or by finding & liking 23min of Ska on , , and . Also, feel free to subscribe and listen to the podcast on , , and .
Also, feel free to download this episode if you wanna keep it forever.
What to submit your band? Email: [email protected]
Have something else to say? Email: [email protected]
Another way to support this podcast is to listen to and support our sister podcast the Ska After Party or to buy some records from our partners in crime over at Grandpa’s Casino Recordings, they carry some great vinyl ska records! | {
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Does ICE's sensitive locations policy remain in effect?
Yes. ICE has previously issued and implemented a policy concerning enforcement actions at sensitive locations. These FAQs are intended to clarify what types of locations are covered by those policies.
How does ICE decide where a specific enforcement action will take place? What factors are considered when making such a decision?
Determinations regarding the manner and location of arrests are made on a case-by-case basis, taking into consideration all aspects of the situation, including the target’s criminal history, safety considerations, the viability of the leads on the individual’s whereabouts, and the nature of the prospective arrest location.
What does ICE policy require for enforcement actions to be carried out at sensitive locations?
exigent circumstances exist; other law enforcement actions have led officers to a sensitive location, or prior approval is obtained from a designated supervisory official. Pursuant to ICE policy, enforcement actions are not to occur at or be focused on sensitive locations such as schools, places of worship, unless; The policy is intended to guide ICE officers' and agents' actions when enforcing federal law at or focused on sensitive locations, to enhance public understanding and trust, and to ensure that people seeking to participate in activities or utilize services provided at any sensitive location are free to do so, without fear or hesitation.
What does ICE mean by the term “sensitive location”?
Schools, such as known and licensed daycares, pre-schools and other early learning programs; primary schools; secondary schools; post-secondary schools up to and including colleges and universities; as well as scholastic or education-related activities or events, and school bus stops that are marked and/or known to the officer, during periods when school children are present at the stop;
Medical treatment and health care facilities, such as hospitals, doctors’ offices, accredited health clinics, and emergent or urgent care facilities;
Places of worship, such as churches, synagogues, mosques, and temples;
Religious or civil ceremonies or observances, such as funerals and weddings; and
During a public demonstration, such as a march, rally, or parade. Locations treated as sensitive locations under ICE policy would include, but are not be limited to:
What is considered an enforcement action as it relates to sensitive locations?
Enforcement actions covered by this policy are apprehensions, arrests, interviews, or searches, and for purposes of immigration enforcement only, surveillance. Actions not covered by this policy include activities such as obtaining records, documents, and similar materials from officials or employees, providing notice to officials or employees, serving subpoenas, engaging in Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP) compliance and certification visits, guarding or securing detainees, or participating in official functions or community meetings.
Are sensitive locations located along the international border also protected?
The sensitive locations policy does not apply to operations that are conducted within the immediate vicinity of the international border, including the functional equivalent of the border. However, when situations arise that call for enforcement actions at or near a sensitive location within the immediate vicinity of the international border, including its functional equivalent, agents and officers are expected to exercise sound judgment and common sense while taking appropriate action, consistent with the goals of this policy. Examples of operations within the immediate vicinity of the border are, but are not limited to, searches at ports of entry, activities undertaken where there is reasonable certainty that an individual just crossed the border, circumstances where ICE has maintained surveillance of a subject since crossing the border, and circumstances where ICE is operating in a location that is geographically further from the border but separated from the border by rugged and remote terrain.
Will enforcement actions ever occur at sensitive locations?
Enforcement actions may occur at sensitive locations in limited circumstances, but will generally be avoided. ICE officers and agents may conduct an enforcement action at a sensitive location if there are exigent circumstances, if other law enforcement actions have led officers to a sensitive location, or with prior approval from an appropriate supervisory official.
When may an enforcement action be carried out at a sensitive location without prior approval?
ICE officers and agents may carry out an enforcement action at a sensitive location without prior approval from a supervisor in exigent circumstances related to national security, terrorism, or public safety, or where there is an imminent risk of destruction of evidence material to an ongoing criminal case. When proceeding with an enforcement action under exigent circumstances, officers and agents must conduct themselves as discreetly as possible, consistent with officer and public safety, and make every effort to limit the time at or focused on the sensitive location.
Are courthouses considered a sensitive location and covered by the sensitive locations policy?
No. ICE does not view courthouses as a sensitive location.
Where should I report an ICE enforcement action that I believe may be inconsistent with these policies? | {
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A water main break on the city’s eastside was causing discoloured water in several neighbourhoods.
City of Saskatoon crews on Monday were flushing the water distribution system and conducting quality testing after the break affected homes and businesses in Lakewood, Lakeridge, Lakeview, Wildwood, Briarwood and Rosewood.
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tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or Discoloured water in several neighbourhoods caused by broken water main: city Back to video
The areas are largely located “along or adjacent to Taylor Street, Nemeiben Road and Slimmon Road,” the city said in a news release. “The majority of residents in each neighbourhood have not reported the presence of any discoloured water.”
The City of Saskatoon was making several recommendations until all repairs were made:
• Do not use discoloured water for drinking, food and drink preparation or laundry.
• Clear the water by running the cold water tap — ideally a bathtub tab — for five minutes to clear sediments. If that does not work, try again in one hour.
• If the water is not clear after two to three hours, contact (306) 975-2476. | {
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The Overlook In The Overlook, A.V. Club film critic Ignatiy Vishnevetsky examines the misfits, under-appreciated gems, and underseen classics of film history. Prev Next View All
Trees set out to off mankind, poisoning our cities with airborne neurotoxins that make people smash their heads through glass or hurl themselves off buildings and into traffic, sending survivors scampering into the countryside and leading a whole lot of viewers to wonder whether they’re supposed to take any of this seriously. The movie in question is The Happening, an homage to kooky drive-in sci-fi played inconsistently straight, often cited as exhibit A in the case against M. Night Shyamalan. The writer-director-producer had played with creature-feature material before, in his earlier (and much better received) Signs, a movie that split the difference between alien and home invasion by imagining extraterrestrials as intruders casing a rural house. In Signs, the Hess family—a former Episcopalian priest, his two kids, and his loser brother—are terrorized by noseless green bogeymen, and also by the stuff of an earlier generation’s B movies: a picture of a flying saucer vaporizing the residents of house just like theirs, an army recruiter character who seems to have wandered in from a Cold War cheapie, and so on. Signs is a religious film, and so is The Happening, on a certain level. But we’ll get to that later.
In the past year, Shyamalan’s reputation has bounced back a little, thanks to the success of his most recent film, The Visit, a creative found-footage horror flick, self-financed on a small budget. But let’s be real here: Barring some kind of wider cultural shift, Shyamalan will never command as much attention and goodwill as he did around the turn of the century, when he was widely praised as the next something-or-other of American cinema on the strength of The Sixth Sense, his acclaimed and very popular third feature. (The earlier Praying With Anger and Wide Awake are obscure enough that a lot of folks assume that The Sixth Sense was his debut; both deal with religious values, by the way.) His reputation slipped with every subsequent film, at first in tiny increments, and then steeply, with The Happening marking the point of no return; released in the summer of 2008, it was a commercial success, but was met with overwhelmingly negative reviews, even in this storied publication. The fact that the movie even managed to make money speaks to the cachet Shyamalan had with the wider movie-going public, because The Happening is very weird, and maybe too thorough at imitating its sources for its own good.
The Happening
Patterned on the B movies of the early atomic age, the best of which could be sophisticated in everything except premise and acting (exception: Invasion Of The Body Snatchers), the movie swaps out radiation for climate change, but otherwise keeps to the template, complete with an ending in which a man in a suit explains everything that happened, but not really. It’s a disaster movie with no large-scale scenes of destruction, which makes it seem absurd or surreal, especially when you factor in Shyamalan’s fixation on the banal Americana of Northeastern industrial backcountry: Amtrak trains, nuclear power plants, wood-sided five-doors. Sometimes, it mimics the goofiness of authentic ’50s B movies; this is one of those cases where the miscasting—namely, Mark Wahlberg as a Philadelphia science teacher who looks and talks like a football coach who’s been forced to sub sex ed—seems at least partly intentional. And yet, even with its non sequitur references to food (tiramisu, hot dogs, “lemon drink,” etc.) and its winks of self-parody (e.g., Wahlberg talking to a plastic plant), The Happening is a movie that a lot of people presume is trying and failing to be taken seriously. And maybe it is.
On the one hand, it’s basically re-skinning tropes from the nuclear anxiety era, and the result seems just as silly as the threat of irradiated animals did to Joe Smartass in the mid-1950s. On the other, it’s a much more sincere horror film than it lets on, regardless of whether you take it as a campy (but very deliberate) B movie pastiche or just a really dumb film. But let’s address the question of intentionality first, because Shyamalan controls the shit out of The Happening—in every respect except the acting of the leads. Unusually for the genre, the movie is set mostly in open areas and in daylight; unable to corner the characters or hide a threat in darkness, Shyamalan opts for pure form, in his Spielberg-restrained-by-arthouse style. Perhaps this is one of those cases where a filmmaker invents a problem so that they can prove themselves by directing their way out. (The climax of Signs—in which almost all of the action is implied or handled obliquely—comes to mind.)
The result is that the so-called scares in The Happening are largely abstract and standalone. More often than not, these are carefully staged and timed shots of random people killing themselves: A long take of a gun being passed from suicide to suicide, an eerie low angle of workers nonchalantly tumbling from the top of a constructions site, a telephoto shot of man lying down in front of a lawnmower, a driver’s POV of a tree tunnel avenue where the bodies of the hanged dangle like gourds. And it’s not hard to make a case for the movie on form alone. Though his taste for somber lighting, Steadicam shots, and slow zooms skews New Hollywood—bolstered here by the ’70s bona fides of cinematographer Tak Fujimoto, who shot Badlands and Melvin And Howard, among others—Shyamalan is more viewer-perspective classicist than aesthete. There’s always a clear reason for why something is in the frame or why it isn’t, and you can all but see the storyboard pencil marks under every camera movement. Something this confidently made has to have its reasons. And what about the epilogue, which plays like a parody of tidy tie-up closures, and is the only downbeat ending of Shyamalan’s career?
The “chain of suicides” sequence.
For someone raised Hindu, Shyamalan is unusually fixated on Christianity and Christian themes; the fact that he spent his childhood and teen years in Catholic and Episcopalian private schools probably has something to do with it. This is the part where this column tells you that The Happening is a spiritual horror film. Or at least it’s a movie about an existential fear that’s classified as religious in the Christian sense, but which the film translates into the vulgate of Mark Wahlberg reaction shots. Trees aren’t scary, though neither are houses, kitchen knives, or most objects of horror. What’s supposed to be scary—and isn’t for some folks—is the idea that human beings are only ever responding to environmental stimuli and that free will is just an illusion. Which raises the question: Is The Happening actually too serious? Shyamalan, a verified cornball, likes the silly stuff of genre fiction too much to resist interjecting it into somber environments. (See: The text that flashes on screen at the very end of Unbreakable.) And though The Happening is mostly intentional camp, it has a buried current of disquiet.
Which is where we circle back to Signs, the earlier, better-acted, generally more well-liked Shyamalan movie that happens to be overtly religious. The thing that actually makes Signs’ plot tick isn’t an alien invasion, but the belief that there’s such a thing as the divine, a protective higher power that is always offering help in code. Similarly, The Happening’s trees don’t actually matter; the real plot mechanic is that people do whatever chemicals tell them. In order for the tree nonsense to happen, this has to be presumed to be true, and on a religious level, it’s scary. Shyamalan’s two most widely admired movies, The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable, both presume cosmic meaning behind the relationships between their main characters, though in both cases, they withhold the ramifications until the last minute. But in The Happening, everything is premised on the assumption that life is meaningless—a deep anxiety that informs the movie’s abstracted scare scenarios, but is also hidden behind camp. It’s not incoherent, but it’s often hard to read. It’s a genuine curio, not entirely successful, and if you subscribe to the old auteurist line of movies being both expressions and entertainment objects, it’s both too self-consciously silly and too personal to dismiss.
Next guest: We leap back into the Hong Kong film industry of the late 1950s for Air Hostess, a bright, mesmerizingly upbeat musical romance about how great it is to work for an airline. | {
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OFFICIALS from the Department of Foreign Affairs in Dublin have said they are monitoring the case of republican Tony Taylor.
The Derry man was returned to jail in March last year after his early release licence was revoked by then secretary of state Theresa Villiers.
A former republican prisoner, Taylor was sentenced to 18 years in jail in 1994 for IRA activity and for three years in 2011 for possession of a rifle.
He is currently being held at Maghaberry Prison in Co Antrim.
In response to a parliamentary question tabled by Fianna Fail TD Éamon Ó Cuív, foreign affairs minister Charlie Flannigan has said his officials are monitoring the Taylor and other cases and have raised it with the Northern Ireland Office.
“The particular personal circumstances of the individual in questions, including issues relating to access to Maghaberry for family members has been raised with the Northern Ireland Office,” he said.
Mr Ó Cuív’s question to the minister came after a group of TD’s met Taylor’s wife Lorraine in Belfast last month.
Taylor’s solicitor Aiden Carlin said the case raises human rights issues.
"Tony Taylor's recall is internment in all but name,” he said.
“It is without justification and sets a very dangerous precedent for republican ex-prisoners. | {
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We invest in housing, human services and schools. We should invest in our democracy, too.
The Fair Elections Act of 2017 would establish a voluntary, limited public matching-funds program for qualified candidates running for elected office in the District. As proposed, the program would match $5 for every $1 contributed to qualified candidates who agreed to accept only small-dollar donations and forgo donations from traditional political action committees. A resident who could afford only a $50 contribution with a $250 match would make an actual donation of $300, providing candidates who participate in the program with sufficient financial support for their campaigns.
Howard County recently created a similar program, set to begin with the 2022 election cycle. Montgomery County’s public financing program, which is up and running for next year’s election, has attracted broad support.
A matching-funds program would strengthen our democracy by empowering D.C. residents who now are underrepresented.
Currently, the people who largely fund D.C. elections do not reflect the beautiful diversity of our city. Donors tend to be whiter, wealthier, older and more male than the District’s population. A study by Demos of the 2014 election found that, while white people make up 37 percent of the District’s population, 62 percent of mayoral donors and 67 percent of D.C. Council donors are white.
Candidates who do not have a wealthy network of friends are at a disadvantage when facing candidates with a broad and well-financed network. The disparity is even more pronounced when considering citywide races, in which donor limits increase. We can address this with the Fair Elections Act so that the people who fund our elections reflect the people who live and vote in the District.
A well-crafted public financing system also would help democratize elections by breaking down the barriers to running for office, amplifying the voices of voters and providing residents an opportunity to participate in the electoral process on par with corporate interests.
Momentum has been building for a public finance system in the District, and I have been a proud supporter of it because the District is stronger when residents are empowered and able to participate fully in our government. The Fair Elections Act would restore power to the electorate and help engage more people in the political process. This would be good for candidates, incumbents and challengers, our government and, most important, residents.
In 2013, the council enacted significant campaign finance reform legislation that I sponsored that resulted in enhanced accountability and transparency in the financing of D.C. elections. That legislation closed loopholes and enhanced oversight of lobbyist bundling.
A robust democratic process is something I have been committed to for a long time. It is why I first introduced public financing legislation in 2013, held the first roundtable on the bill and am a proud co-introducer of this year’s strengthened proposal.
Because we are elected officials and D.C. voters, it is critical that D.C. Council members support fair elections and make sure we tackle the issues confronting our democracy with the same urgency and rigor as with similar issues in our communities.
The writer, a Democrat, represents Ward 5 on the D.C. Council, where he serves as chairman pro tempore. | {
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Washington
What does the future have in store for us if Congress succeeds in impeaching President Donald Trump, the president who presides over the best economy America has had in the last 50 years? I think you can look to South America for a glimpse of the Great Republic that will be vouchsafed us by the congressgirls from what is called “the Squad” and from the most foul-mouthed field of Democratic candidates ever to run for the presidency. Already the Democratic National Committee has asked the candidates to avoid crude back-alley language in their debates, and NBC News has requested that they abide by the guidelines of the FCC.
Last week as many as a million Chileans poured into the streets of Santiago demanding that President Sebastián Piñera step down and that someone confect a new constitution for the country that a generation ago was saved from communism by the dictator Augusto Pinochet. Irving Kristol, the wise 20th-century political commentator, was given to saying that the problem with South America was that its leaders could not govern themselves. The Latin Americans now swarming over our southern border and rampaging through the streets of Santiago are still more evidence of Kristol’s wisdom.
A former Chilean government minister, Sergio Bitar, who is trying to bring the political parties together in Chile, last week expressed his frustration, saying, “There’s no political or social rationality” for the protests. Viewing the destruction, he explained, “It’s a sickness of destruction.” It seems that way to me, Mr. Bitar, but now the Colossus to the North is on a similar path. The Squad (the synonyms of which, for instance “gang” or “mob,” bring to mind fascism) and the foul-mouthed politicians seeking the Democratic nomination want our fairly elected president removed from office one year before the citizenry holds another election. Moreover, they are very impatient with the Constitution that has governed our country for more than 200 years. Already Congressgirl Ocasio-Cortez has denounced the Electoral College as a “scam.” I think she thinks its tuition is exorbitant.
Peter J. Wallison, one of the most astute political observers today, has written that if the Squad and the Democrats have their way and President Trump is impeached — even if he is acquitted — the strength of the presidency and the steadiness and reliability of our government are finished. If this impeachment succeeds, we are on our way to becoming a country with the fixity of South American countries.
Wallison writes, “If Congress could remove a president from office — in other words, overturn an election — for insubstantial reasons, it will destroy the stability of the presidential office in the future. Any time that Congress is controlled by an opposing political party, the president will be in danger of impeachment for some minor offense.”
The Constitution requires that the president commit “Treason, Bribery, or other High Crimes and Misdemeanors” to be impeached. An impeachable act has to be equivalent to treason or bribery or other high crimes or misdemeanors. For the duly elected president to talk to a foreign leader in the course of a wide-ranging conversation about foreign aid in July and do nothing to stop that foreign aid shipment in September is not a high crime. It might be a sign of lapsed judgment, especially when the president knows that other White House staffers of questionable loyalty are listening in on the telephone call. But it is not a crime.
Yet such heretofore minor lapses are going to hamstring our presidents for years to come. It will be a new day for America. Get used to the tumult of the last few years to continue for years to come. It is a great irony to see the Democratic Party, the party that has long favored a strong president capable of taking on powerful enemies of the people — the giant corporations! the health-care industry! the National Rifle Association! — in the future being hampered by fears of impeachment threats. Either that or our presidents will be met by riots in the street when they want to do the really grand thing. And the Republican Party — what will it favor? Probably the strong chief executive.
If this impeachment comes about, we are about to see the parties change their roles: the Democrats for an easily impeached president and the Republicans for a strong president. Change is in the air. | {
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Tiny tardigrades, also known as moss piglets, were on board the lander that crash into the moon in April
They were supposed to be the moss piglets who boldly went where no moss piglet had gone before.
Alas, an astronomer has said that the colony of hardy bugs that crash-landed on the moon in April, hailed this week as noble emissaries of the Earth, were almost certainly not the first.
Instead, contamination from lunar landers, astronaut waste and even asteroids makes it likely that they will be welcomed to Earth’s satellite by other eight-legged compatriots who made the same journey long ago. Lunar life may not be as rare as we think.
An Israeli lunar lander crashed into the moon last April. On board were thousands of microscopic creatures known as moss piglets or tardigrades. These are one of the oddest organisms known to | {
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So things have been taking a lot of twists lately, but @NAMELESS and I will be staying on nV now along with @MerK_nV and looking for one going into Advanced Warfare. At the end of the day, Hastro and I clearly had our differences, but he came to Ant and I earlier and decided with Joey that this is what they want to do with the team rather than dropping Nameless and I. Stro admitted his mistakes and as long as someone can own up to that, I can forgive them and move past that. Just to clear any confusion as well, there was no official decision made yesterday when it was brought up, especially with EG's current contract situations.
Reply · Report Post | {
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You may be wondering – in the age of modern technologies and equipment why we still need a brochure? The answer is quite simple; there are no replacements for brochures. A brochure can be easily distributed and is a very economical technique. This is why brochures are still in use and will remain the same in coming days.
Marketing is the heartbeat of any business and companies spend big bucks on digital marketing and offline marketing. Talking of offline marketing, the impact of a well-designed brochure is second to none. At Spark Design, we develop all types of brochure design for beauty parlour. We provide you with lots of sample brochure formats such as roll fold, bi-fold, tri-fold, booklet, catalogue, and insert design formats to choose from. Additionally, we make sure that your beauty parlour brochure stands out from the rest by maintaining the right mix of contents and images. | {
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In August I decided to learn about the state of the world from an environmental perspective, and also learn what changes I could make myself to have less of an impact.
There are a ton of environmental issues, but I ended up focusing primarily on two of the major ones:
Climate Change: We’re in a lot of trouble if we don’t change the trend.
Waste (specifically plastic): The problem with plastic is that we produce a huge amount of it (just look down an aisle in any grocery store) and it never goes away. This month I learned that unlike glass & metal which can theoretically be recycled indefinitely, plastic usually either:
Doesn’t get recycled (a lot of the plastic that you put in your recycle bin simply takes a more expensive route to landfill because there’s no market for it), OR
Gets “downcycled” into other products like polyester which itself never breaks down and ends its life in landfill or the environment.
We’re producing a never-ending quantity of plastic on a finite earth, and poisoning the planet in the process.
To educate myself about these issues, I watched a few documentaries & other online videos, and read articles online as well as two books. Rather than listing off all of the material that I consumed, I’ll just mention the items that I found most worthwhile.
Documentaries:
Global Warming – What You Need To Know
Bag It
The Majestic Plastic Bag (4 minutes)
TED Talks:
Al Gore: New Thinking on the Climate Crisis
Allan Savory: How to Green the World’s Deserts and Reverse Climate Change
Jonathan Foley – The Other Inconvenient Truth
Other Videos:
David Attenborough on Population
Pumphandle 2012: Time history of atmospheric carbon dioxide
Books:
Plastic Free by Beth Terry
Ecoholic by Adria Vasil (I didn’t read this entire book but it’s a useful reference, although not focused quite enough on waste reduction in my opinion)
Here’s a list of the changes that I made. Many of the changes happened during the month of August but manuy also came afterwards (it’s a lot of work to change everything at once so I’ve been doing it gradually). I’m only listing changes here that have “stuck”:
The Changes Item Before After Mail Snail Mail (for bank statements etc) Online mail (canceled as much snail mail as possible). Laundry Detergent In plastic bottles, with questionable ingredients. No packaging, green ingredients (Local store Terra20 allows customers to bring in re-used bottles to fill with eco-friendly detergent). Chickpeas In metal containers lined with plastic. No packaging (I now buy them in bulk in my own reusable containers). Compost Bags Sealed them closed with plastic tape. Close them by just folding them (a minor change… but everything counts!). Garbage Bags Plastic garbage bags. No garbage bags. Now that I’m composting all food waste, everything that goes into my garbage can is dry… and when the garbage can is full I dump it directly into a dumpster). Produce Bags Disposable plastic produce bags provided by the grocery store. Reusable organic cotton produce bags. Carrots Baby carrots in a plastic bag. Full size carrots in no packaging (except for a twist-tie). Garlic In a plastic mesh wrapper. Loose garlic heads in no packaging. Dried Seaweed In a plastic package. Quit eating seaweed because I can’t get it with no packaging. Lentils In plastic bags. No packaging – in bulk in my own re-used containers. Salmon I’d cook only what I’d eat right then. I now cook a few days’ worth in advance (uses less energy for cooking) and store it in the fridge. Tea In plastic packaging, and with staples holding the bag & string together. In only paper boxes & with no staples (and when I run out of my existing tea I’ll buy it loose in my own re-used containers). Plastic Cling Wrap I’d use it to cover food. I now store food in mason jars & re-use the lids. Dove “Soap” In excess packaging, including plastic. I’ve found Dove in less packaging in some stores, and with no plastic. Shaving Cream In a disposable aerosol can. I now use soap instead of shaving cream – soap that comes in no packaging. Soap works surprisingly well! Paper Towels I used paper towels often. Quit paper towels completely. I use re-usable dish cloths instead & wash them in the laundry. Why didn’t I think of this before? Paper towels are crazy! Drinking Glasses I used glasses that were built for drinking. But my city can’t recycle them. I now drink out of mason jars, because they’re recyclable when they break. Receipts I’d recycle them. I put them in the garbage because they contain BPA which gets into products made from recycled paper (i.e. toilet paper). Berries In plastic containers. Quit buying berries since I can’t get them with no packaging. Grapes In plastic bags. Quit buying grapes since I can’t get them with no packaging. Vinegar Apple Cider Vinegar in a plastic bottle. Switched to other types of vinegar that come in glass bottles (rice, red wine, white wine). Bulk Foods (oats, sunflower seeds, quinoa, almonds, sesame seeds, etc) I’d put them into the disposable plastic bags provided at the bulk food store. I put them into my own re-used containers. Books Bought physical books. Got a Kobo and will be buying electronic books from now on.
The result of this month is that I now care more, and do more to try to preserve our future. It has taken about 4 billion years for evolution to produce life as we know it. And now, in the evolutionary blink of an eye, we’re destroying it. I hope we can find a way to stop before it’s too late. | {
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Our Labrador recently had a serious health scare. He developed a number of lumps which turned out to be “fatty” tumours. Happily, they turned out to be benign. The tumours exist because the dog is overweight. They could increase in size if he gets any heavier. This could ultimately affect his gait and lead to surgery. We had to do something, and thankfully there was a simple solution; put the dog on a strict weight reduction diet and change his lifestyle.
The vet pointed out that by making these changes we could prevent the development of other diseases such as arthritis and canine diabetes. Ultimately, it could help the dog achieve a longer life. There are some simple things you can do to tell whether your dog is overweight. There are also several steps you can take to help your pet shed those unwanted pounds.
How to recognise if your dog is overweight
The dog is my daily companion. I never really noticed his weight gradually increasing. It was the vet who suggested that we weigh him because he looked “chubby”. Just days before my brother had commented on how “big” the dog was, so take note of what people say about your pet..
Before the weighing, a few simple tests were carried out. Firstly the vet ran his hands lightly along the dog’s rib cage. He had to press down hard to feel the ribs, and then concluded “there is too much fat here”.
The second thing he did was to view the dog in a standing position. He checked whether the tummy was sagging below the rib cage. The vet described what to look for: a “motorbike” shape when you view them in side profile. Like people, dogs should have a waist. This should be between their ribs and hind quarters. Our pet had no waist at all!
Finally, the dog was weighed. His actual weight was checked against the ideal weight range for the breed. The reality for us was that the dog needed to lose 7 kg of fat!
Take some advice
In our case the tumours prompted the visit to the vet. The dog was examined and his weight evaluated. Once we established the need to slim down, the advice came thick and fast.
I now know what my dog weighs, and more importantly, his target weight. A deadline of one year has been set for us to shed those kilogrammes, and a weight reduction plan has been set up for us to follow. In addition to the vets advice I found lots of useful information online. Forums, and reviews of diet food were particularly informative. I also found some good pet food stores with knowledgeable sales assistant who helped me select the right diet food.
Choosing the diet food
It was recommended we buy a specially formulated diet food. Initially, we purchased the feed from the vet, but found that most pet food stores sold the same product. Basically, it was a dried food, low in calories and fat, but high in protein.
The dog hated it. I have never seen him look so unhappy. I would put the food in the bowl and he would turn up his nose and walk away. This went on for nearly 2 days and was quite distressing. We were told to “be strong” and that it was only a matter of time before he began eating again.
The vet was right, but the dog was constantly miserable so we experimented with other branded low calorie feed until we found a suitable one.
Monitor the diet
One of the best things I found was a free online chart which I now use to monitor his daily feed and exercise. I now use a measuring cup to weigh out his food rather than trying to estimate the right amount. Either your vet, or the food labelling, will tell you how many calories you should be giving your dog per serving of food. Just try to be consistent in giving the right proportions.
I had to ban all family members from giving the dog treats because many of them are so high in calories. Feeding scraps from the table is no longer allowed. The vet suggested natural treats such as vegetables or string cheese, but take advice on this first since some human foods are toxic to canines.
Increase the exercise
We were asked to gradually increase his daily exercise. Dieting alone is not enough. Labradors are a large breed and we were advised to walk him 2 hours per day. I work from home so can fit this into my daily schedule. It’s not so easy for other people who have to go out to work, but if this is the case try using the kids.They might help out walking the dog.
On the odd occasion, I have used a nearby dog walking service. I also found that a quick tea break in the garden, throwing a ball for the dog has been beneficial. There are also plenty of dog toys around that can increase their activity within the home. My dog loves anything that squeaks and will play quite happily on his own until he gets bored.
I still feel guilty that I never noticed the dog gaining weight. What he eats is really up to me, and I feel that I let him down. A quick evaluation of his lifestyle before any changes were made showed that too many people were giving him excess food in between his meals. We also found that he wasn’t being exercised for long enough each day.
I am now much more consistent in what, when and how I feed him. Changing his lifestyle was difficult in the beginning, but it is so much easier now that I have found a specialist diet food and lifestyle which works for us. The dog still has weight to lose, but I can see the health and fitness benefits already. A dog’s weight is influenced by many factors and individual owners need to develop weight reduction plans that “fit” their particular dog, but I hope the tips I’ve written about will help other dog owners faced with a similar situation. | {
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NEW YORK — Serena Williams flubbed yet another shot and wailed, “I keep missing my forehand!”
She was in trouble, if only briefly, against 17-year-old American Caty McNally, who is friends, and doubles partners, with Coco Gauff.
Making key adjustments to her serve and straightening out her other strokes, Williams avoided what would have been her earliest loss in 19 appearances at the U.S. Open, coming back to beat McNally 5-7, 6-3, 6-1 in a match that ended as Wednesday turned to Thursday.
“You can’t win tournaments making that many errors,” Williams said. “I knew I had to play better, and I knew I could.”
And so she did.
“Obviously, she’s going to pick up her level. I knew that was going to happen,” McNally said. “Next time, I just have to raise my level with hers.”
Williams improved to 38-0 in the first two rounds at Flushing Meadows. The only time she was beaten as early as even the third round in New York was in her tournament debut all way back in 1998 — when she was just 16 herself.
The following year, Williams won the first of her six U.S. Open championships. McNally hadn’t even been born yet.
Now 37, Williams owns 23 Grand Slam singles titles in all, and she showed off why while powering her way through a deficit, taking 16 of the final set’s initial 17 points.
McNally had never won a match at any major tournament until Monday. She is ranked 121st and received a wild-card invitation from the U.S. Tennis Association for singles and for doubles, the latter with 15-year-old sensation Gauff.
It was Gauff who beat Williams’ older sister, Venus, on the way to the fourth round of Wimbledon last month.
Might another stunner be in the offing? Seemed a possibility for a set, anyway, with McNally charging the net, serving-and-volleying, and looking like someone who belonged.
Maybe that’s why Williams never looked comfortable early. Took time to get into a real groove. Went stretches without being the dominant force she’s been for a couple of decades and sure was just the other night while absolutely overwhelming five-time major champion Maria Sharapova 6-1, 6-1 in the same arena.
The Arthur Ashe Stadium crowd, made louder than usual under the retractable roof that was closed all day because of showers, alternated who it was pulling for, more than happy to cheer for either woman representing the United States at the country’s Grand Slam tournament.
Who doesn’t love to support an all-time great, after all? And who doesn’t enjoy getting behind a true underdog?
”She’s young. It’s her first time in a stage like this and only her second Grand Slam, so I think there’s a lot to gain from it,” said Lynn Nabors-McNally, Caty’s mother, who also helps coach her. “It’s a great stepping stone to a lot of things.”
So there was McNally, almost strutting to the sideline while waving her arms, trying to get the spectators to offer even more noise and more applause after she pulled out the opening set in impressive fashion. First, McNally converted her only break point of the match to lead 6-5. Then she served out the set despite falling behind love-40, erasing three break points and hitting a 103-mph service winner to seal it — and implored the fans to get loud.
They obliged.
“I knew I was playing against the greatest of all time. ... I walked out there and I had the chills,” McNally said. “Super happy just to get a set from her. That’s something that not very many people do.”
And for a bit of the second set, too, McNally stayed with Williams.
But Williams started to pull away, in part by dispensing with the serves out wide that McNally was handling well, and in part by reducing her mistakes from 15 unforced errors in the first set, to 11 in the second to two in the third.
“Actually, I’d rather not be tested in every match. But that doesn’t happen. So it’s important for me to have those, like, really rough, rowdy matches,” Williams said. “That helps a lot.”
On the men’s side, Novak Djokovic is through to the third round and will use some of the time until then getting more treatment on his left shoulder.
Djokovic fought through trouble with the shoulder to beat Juan Ignacio Londero 6-4, 7-6 (3), 6-1.
The defending champion was treated by the trainer multiple times in the match and appeared in trouble when he fell behind 3-0 in the second set. But he battled back to take it in a tiebreaker and had an easy time in the third set.
The No. 1 seed wouldn’t reveal much about the nature of the injury in his post-match interview.
Earlier, Venus Williams needed a little pick-me-up on a rainy day in New York.
It takes more than caffeine to beat Elina Svitolina, though.
Williams had a resurgence after some coffee was sent her way after dropping the first set against the No. 5 seed, but Svitolina charged back and eventually beat Williams 6-4, 6-4 in a second-round match.
The cup of coffee was delivered from Williams’ team in the stands to a ballboy, who tried to bring it to Williams. But she walked off to the court between sets before he could get it to her, so he eventually dropped it off next to her seat.
Williams then came back to take a 3-0 lead to start the second. But having to save four break points for a tough hold in that third game seemed to take something out of the 39-year-old Williams, as Svitolina came right back to take five straight games for a 5-3 lead.
Williams then fought off five match points in a 22-point game to hold her serve before Svitolina eventually ended it on her sixth chance, improving to 13-3 in Grand Slam matches this season.
In another early match, Roger Federer once again came back from a set down to advance, beating Damir Dzumhur 3-6, 6-2, 6-3, 6-4.
The second-round match was very much like the opener for the third-seeded Federer, who dropped the first set against qualifier Sumit Nagal before cruising the rest of the way. Federer again stepped up his game against the 99th-ranked Dzumhur, winning 77 percent of his first-serve points and blasting 58 winners, more than double that of his opponent.
The five-time U.S. Open champion is now 19-0 in second-round matches at Flushing Meadows and moves on to play the winner of the match between 25th-seeded Lucas Pouille and Daniel Evans. | {
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Leicester Tigers were beaten 40-6 by Exeter Chiefs at Sandy Park on the opening day of the Gallagher Premiership season.
George Ford gave the visitors an early lead and doubled the advantage with his second kick before Chiefs, who gained momentum in the spell approaching half-time, grabbed two quick scores from Olly Woodburn and Sam Simmonds to lead 14-6 at the break.
Neither side could find an important score in the third quarter of the game, but Chiefs wrestled the initiative with two tries in six minutes just after the hour mark and added two more in the closing four minutes of the game to open their campaign on a winning note and claim a bonus point too.
Tigers, with five opening-day wins in the last six seasons of Premiership action, included debutants David Denton and Will Spencer in the forward pack with fellow newcomers Kyle Eastmond, David Feao and Gaston Cortes on the bench, for the trip to face a Chiefs side who finished eight points clear at the top of the table last May before defeat by Saracens in the Premiership Final.
Both teams went into their opening weekend on the back of two wins in three games during pre-season, with the Chiefs beating Cardiff Blues and Munster while Tigers also beat the Blues and then London Irish.
Ford got the game under way with Tigers wearing the white alternate kit against the black-clad Chiefs, and it was the strength of defence from both teams that was a feature of the first half with ferocious hits all over the pitch.
When Jonny May was penalised for a tackle in the air on Santiago Cordero as he collected a high pass, the Tigers defence stood up and got their reward with a penalty following big shots from Sione Kalamafoni and then Spencer.
Cordero then threatened on the wing but Ben Youngs and Ford combined to chase and then clear before Telusa Veainu sniffed half an opportunity as he won the race to his chip ahead but spilled ball as he attempted to gather it in a good position.
The resulting scrum, though, brought a penalty and a first sight of the posts for Ford, from wide on the right approaching 40 metres out. The kick was good and not only broke the deadlock but also pushed the fly-half to 500 points in his Leicester career in his 63rd appearance.
Back is possession, it was Tigers’ turn to test the defence, with Youngs and Ford looking for an opening and Denton carrying strongly until referee Wayne Barnes awarded Exeter a penalty inside their own 22 after multiple phases of play.
Scrappy ball near halfway was cleared by No8 Sam Simmonds and as he broke a tackle, Exeter got forward with Nic White and the influential Ollie Devoto, but wing Woodburn lost possession as Manu Tuilagi defended in the corner.
Both defences were still making their work count, with Tigers rewarded with a penalty near halfway as they swarmed over a breakdown and another when Chiefs failed to release in the tackle.
Ford called for the tee just two metres inside the Exeter half and calmly pushed the ball through the posts to double the lead at 6-0 on 26 minutes.
But Exeter provided an immediate response, with Matt Kvesic and Alec Hepburn combining at close range before Woodburn dotted down next to the posts. Steenson added the conversion for a 7-6 lead from the first really clear-cut chance created by either team in almost half an hour’s play.
A superb steal from Brendon O’Connor, tracking to make a tackle and instantly ripping back possession, ended another Chief attack, but the hosts were building some momentum and, when Denton was whistled for offside, they were back into the visitors’ 22 and stayed there until they claimed a second try.
This time, No8 Simmonds got the final heave over the line after pressure through the forwards which they maintained despite a huge tackle from Kalamafoni on Hepburn in the build-up. Steenson added the extras to make it 14-6 with two minutes remaining in the half.
Ford, from just beyond the 10-metre line, had one last chance in the half to chip at the deficit, but pushed the kick wide.
Steenson got the second half under way with neither side making any personnel changes, and Tigers were quickly on to the ball with Ford twice taking on the defence with neat footwork and front-rowers Greg Bateman and Tom Youngs carrying with intent.
A scrum penalty given against Bateman released the pressure just 10 metres from the Exeter line and Steenson kicked up to halfway. Tigers recovered possession again and, although they kept it for a long spell, Chiefs made it difficult to get make further territory and threatened a third try when they attacked on their right wing until Ben Youngs got over the ball and won a penalty.
Spencer’s shift ended on 51 minutes, replaced by Harry Wells, and Tatafu Polota-Nau soon joined him in the forward pack as the third quarter of the game was played out almost entirely in the centre of the pitch, with neither side finding any space to put together an attack.
A scrum penalty against Tigers gave Steenson a chance to push play into the corner and, although they quickly spread play away from the lineout, they returned to the forwards and replacement hooker Cowan-Dickie got over the line for their third try, which Steenson converted to push the lead out to 21-6.
David Feao made his debut appearance as a replacement for Bateman entering the final quarter and he was quickly on to the ball as Tigers played through phases again. But they remained 30 metres from the tryline and were penalised on the ball at another breakdown.
Chiefs made the most of the opportunity to get back upfield and when lock Sam Skinner burst through a gap, he passed on to replacement Henry Slade to add a bonus-point try. Steenson’s kick made it 28-6.
Kyle Eastmond, Sam Harrison and Mike Williams were added to the Tigers ranks at the restart, but Tigers were pinned back again and, after a penalty award, Slade hammered the ball into the corner to set up a lineout drive and, although they set it up well, Chiefs were held up by some powerful defence.
Exeter were not to be denied, though, even after missing their man at two consecutive attacking lineouts, as they stayed in control and claimed a fifth try from flanker Kvesic in the left-hand corner after Phil Dollman had been stopped just short.
A sixth quickly followed as Chiefs won turnover ball and Slade offloaded for centre partner Ian Whitten to run in unopposed. Steenson knocked over the extras as the clock ticked down to the 80-minute mark and referee Barnes blew for full-time. | {
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